THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^^. 


■A 


Epochs  of  Modern  History 


EDITED   BY 
EDWARD  E.  MORRIS,  M.A.,  J.  SURTEES  PHILLPOTTS,  B.C.L. 

AND 

C.  COLBECK,  M.A. 


THE  EARLY TUDORS 


REV.  C.  E.  MOBERLY 


EPOCHS  OF  MODERN  HISTORY 


THE  EARLY  TUDORS 


HENRY  VII.:   HENRY  VIII. 


BY    THE 

REV.    C.   E.   MOBERLY,   M.A. 

LATE  A  MASTER  IN  RUGBY  SCHOOL 


WITH  MAPS  AND  PLANS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1887 


PA 
PREFACE 


As  the  plan  of  works  in  this  Series  does  not  allow 
of  systematic  references  at  the  foot  of  the  pages  to 
larger  and  more  detailed  histories  of  the  period,  it 
may  be  well  to  mention  here  a  few  of  the  books 
which  are  likely  to  be  most  useful  to  those  who  wish 
to  study  it  more  fully.  So  far  as  these  are  complete 
histories,  they  must  be  chiefly  modern,  as  the  age  was 
not  fertile  in  contemporary  narratives.  Thus  for 
Richard  III.'s  time  Mr.  Gairdner's  excellent  Life  of 
that  king  should  be  studied,  with  its  appendix  on 
Warbeck;  for  Henry  VII.  Lord  Bacon's  Life,  which 
has  been  carefully  edited  for  the  Cambridge  Univer- 
sity Press  by  Mr.  Lumby.  The  Stanhope  Essay  by 
Mr.  Williamson  on  the  '  Foreign  Commerce  of  Eng- 
land under  the  Tudors '  gives  ample  details  on  this 
subject  in  very  small  compass;  and  the  religious 
movement  from  1485  to  1509  is  described  to  perfec- 
tion in  Mr.  Seebohm's  delightful  work  on  Colet, 
Erasmus,  and  More,  and  in  Cooper's  Life  of  the 
Lady  Margaret. 

For  Henry  VIII. 's  reign  much  has  been  done  of 
late  years,  above  all  by  Mr.  Brewer  in  his  celebrated 
Prefaces   to  the   papers  of  the   reign  in   the   Rolls 


VI  Preface. 

Series  (which  have  been  published  separately  in  two 
volumes),  illustrating  the  years  from  1509  to  1529. 
The  history  of  the  early  Reformation  is  given  with 
much  detail  and  liveliness  in  Dean  Hook's  Lives  of 
Archbishops  Morton,  Warham,  and  Cranmer;  the 
Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries  and  other  measures 
of  the  reign  have  been  examined  with  great  care  in 
Dixon's  '  History  of  the  Church  of  England,'  a  work 
of  unusual  merit.  The  subject  of  religion  is  admi- 
rably treated  as  regards  Germany  in  Ranke's  '  His- 
tory of  the  Reformation,'  which  Miss  Austen  has 
translated. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  refer  to  Mr.  Froude's 
history  of  Henry  VIH.,  for  no  one  can  hope  to 
know  the  period  without  reading  it  diligently.  True 
it  is  that  this  industrious  and  most  eloquent  writer 
may  probably  fail  in  inspiring  readers  with  his  own 
admiration  for  Henry's  actions,  which  indeed  he  has 
of  late  shown  some  disposition  to  reconsider.  But, 
qualify  his  verdict  as  we  will,  we  shall  still  find 
abundant  profit  as  well  as  pleasure  in  reading  his 
great  work,  especially  if  we  check  and  perhaps 
correct  his  view  of  some  great  events  by  comparing 
with  it  Mr.  Friedmann's  recently  published  Life  of 
Anne  Boleyn,  which  is  full  of  important  information 
and  shows  the  hand  of  a  master  throughout.  For 
Scottish  affairs  Mr.  Burton's  *  History  of  Scotland  ' 
is  all  that  can  be  desired. 

Lastly,  it  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  some  very 
interesting  papers  on  Henry  VH.  and  Henry  VHL 


Preface.  Vll 

contained  in  Bishop  Stubbs's  recently  published  volume 
of  Oxford  Lectures.  No  use  has  been  made  of  these 
in  the  present  work,  which  was  in  type  before  they 
appeared ;  its  writer  ventures  to  remark  that,  where 
he  himself  has  praised  Henry  VII.,  he  often  finds 
with  great  pleasure  that  the  Bishop  does  the  same.  It 
is  somewhat  disquieting  to  observe  that  the  Lectures 
attribute  to  Henry  VIII.  far  more  innate  power  and 
ruling  faculty  than  has  been  here  traced  in  his  ad- 
ministration, civil,  military,  and  religious.  It  may 
perhaps  serve  as  an  excuse  for  differing  from  so 
high  an  authority  that  Mr.  Friedmann,  after  taking 
a  connected  view  from  without  of  Henry's  entire 
management  of  home  and  foreign  affairs,  and  of 
the  opinions  with  regard  to  him  expressed  by  foreign 
sovereigns  and  their  correspondents,  is  inclined  to 
place  him  lower,  even  in  mere  intellect,  than  any 
English  writer  has  yet  ventured  to  do. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

National  unity  from  despotism  ......  i 

Despotism  in  Spain         .......  3 

Despotism  in  France          .......  7 

Despotism  in  England    .......  9 

CHAPTER  II. 

Henry  VII. 's  claim  to  the  throne        .         .         .         .  .14 

The  Lady  Margaret        .          .         .         *         .          .         .  15 

Henry's  invasion        .          .         .         .          .         .         .  .16 

Battle  of  Bosworth  Field 18 

Henry's  title  to  the  throne          .         .         .         .         .  .21 

The  Coronation      ........  22 

Restoration  of  persons  attainted          .         .         .         .  -23 

The  Pestilence -25 

English  feeling  under  it     .         .         .         .         .         .  .26 

CHAPTER  HI. 

Parliament  of  1485 27 

Rebellion  of  the  Staffords       ......  28 

Causes  of  Yorkist  feeling  .......  29 

Simnel.     Battle  of  Stoke        ......  30 

Martial  law 33 

Affairs  of  Bretagne         .......  34 

French  policy  there  ........  36 

Northern  and  Scottish  rebellions     .....  38 

Quasi- war  with  France.     Peace  of  Etaples         .         .         -39 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Warbeck  widely  supported         ......     42 

Warbeck  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  .....         45 

Cornish  rebellion.     Blackheath  Field         .         .         .         -47 


X  Contents. 

PAGB 

Warbeck  in  Devonshire 49 

The  Intercursus  Magnus    .         .         . '        •         •         •         -5° 

CHAPTER  V. 

Charles  VIII.  in  Italy 5^ 

Royal  marriages.     The  Italian  League  ....  54 

Crusade  refused 5° 

Prince  Arthur  and  Katherine 57 

Plan  for  Katherine's  second  marriage         .         .         .         -59 

The  Archduke  Philip  in  England 6o 

Empson  and  Dudley 63 

Death  of  Henry  VII 64 

CHAPTER  VI. 

State  of  Ireland ^5 

Poynings'  Laws 

Fraternity  of  St.  George 69 

Laws  of  Henry  VII 69 

The  Star  Chamber 7' 

Navigation  Law,  &c.      .         .         •         •         •         •         •  73 

Trade  with  the  Netherlands 73 

French  trade          ......••  75 

Voyages  of  discovery.     Vasco  de  Gama.    Columbus  .         .  76 

The  Cabots 77 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Spirit  of  the  Renaissance 79 

Enthusiasm  for  Latin  and  Greek  authors.     Colet,  More  .  80 

Works  of  Erasmus     ....                 ...  86 

Schools  and  colleges  for  the  New  Learning     ...  88 
Printers.     Wynkyn  de  Worde.     Poetry  of  the  time    .         .91 

Prose  of  the  period.     The  '  Utopia '        .         .         .         •  93 
Cardinal  Morton  and  Church  Reform         .         .         •         -94 

Erasmus  on  pilgrimages 9" 

Buildings,  &c.,  of  the  period 9^ 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Henry  VIII.  fond  of  the  navy ^o' 

Execution  of  Empson  and  Dudley           ....  103 


Contents.  xi 

FAGS 

Marriage  with  Katherine  of  Aragon 104 

Death  of  the  Lady  Margaret 105 

Disciplinary  laws       .         .         .         .         .         •         •         .106 

Argument  on  Church  privileges 108 

James  IV.  of  Scotland.     The  Bartons        .         .         .         .108 
War  with  France  :  how  regarded no 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  League  of  Cambray 112 

Resistance  of  Venice 113 

Henry  VIII.  joins  the  Holy  League;  his  failure         .         .114 
Naval  operations  .  .         .         .         .         .         .116 

Invasion  of  France    .  .  .         .         .         •         .  •   "7 

Battle  of  Flodden  Field 118 

Home  effects  of  the  war 120 

CHAPTER  X. 

English  trade  in  the  Netherlands 123 

Cornish  mining      .  •  .         .         .         .         •         .124 

Jealousy  of  foreigners 125 

Population  shifting  in  England       .         .         .         .         .128 

Depopulation  of  the  rural  districts 129 

The  rise  in  rents    .         .         .         .         -         .         •         .129 

Scotland  under  Queen  Margaret 130 

The  government  of  Ireland   ,         .         .         •         .         .132 
Vain  attempts  at  a  Crusade  .         .         .         .         •  13^ 

CHAPTER  XI. 
The  French  in  Italy.     Battle  of  Marignano        .         .         .133 
Wolsey's  administration  .         .         .         .         .         .136 

Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold  :  its  uselessness  .         .         -139 

The  Duke  of  Buckingham  executed        ....       141 

Henry's  treachery  to  Francis I43 

The  War  of  Pavia 143 

Turkish  conquest  of  Rhodes 146 

War  taxation  in  England '47 

Sack  of  Rome '49 


XII  Contents. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

PAGE 

Old  anti-Papal  laws 150 

Forerunners  of  the  Reformation.     Doctrine  of  Luther     .       151 

Henry  VIII.  Defender  of  the  Faith I55 

Beginning  of  the  Divorce  question  .         .         .         .156 

Its  dangers  to  England 15^ 

Commission  of  Campeggio I59 

FallofWolsey 162 

His  arrest  and  death 166 

The  first  Reforming  Parliament.     Pramunire  against  the 

clergy '67 

Resistance  of  the  clergy  overruled 1 70 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Appeal  to  the  Universities  on  the  Divorce.  .         .         •   i?' 

Cranmer's  Court  at  Dunstable.  Popular  feeling  towards  Anne  173 
Conditional  excommunication  of  Henry  .  .  .  .175 
The  Nun  of  Kent.  Peter's  Pence.  Th^  congi  d' elire  .  176 
Northern  conspiracies.     Rising  in  Ireland  .         .         .180 

Death  of  Fisher  and  More 182 

Character  of  Sir  T.  More 184 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Bull  of  Deposition  drawn  up      .         .         .         .         .188 

Execution  of  Anne  Boleyn 189 

Henry's  Protestant  leanings 192 

State  of  the  monasteries I93 

The  Universities  visited I95 

Visitation  of  the  Monasteries 196 

The  Louth  rebellion I99 

The  Yorkshire  insurrection 201 

The '  Bishops'  Book '  ...  ...  205 

Prince  Edward  born.     Case  of  Lambert  .         .         .       206 

CHAPTER   XV. 
Lord  Exeter  and  the  Poles.     The  Six  Articles   .         .         .209 
Legislation  for  Wales 213 


Contents.  xiii 

PAGE 

The  alliance  with  Cleves.  Fall  of  Cromwell  .  .  .214 
The  Reformation  in  Scotland  .         .         .         .         .217 

SolwayMoss.  Death  of  James  V.  Attempts  at  Union  .219 
Lord  Leonard  Grey  in  Ireland  .....  222 
Katherine  Howard.     Death  of  Lady  Salisbury  .         .  224 

CHAPTER   XVI. 

Charles  V.  fails  at  Algiers 225 

Henry  joins  Charles  against  Francis  and  the  Turks  .       227 

French  attack  on  Portsmouth     ......  229 

The  currency  debased 230 

Execution  of  Lord  Surrey  .         .         .         .         .         .231 

Henry's  last  persecutions;  his  last  foundations         .         .       233 

Katherine  Parr 234 

Death  of  Henry 235 

Henry's  influence  on  the  Church 236 

Civil  laws  of  Henry  VIII 238 

Trials  under  Henry  VIII 240 

Poetry  of  the  period 240 

The  stage  and  prose 242 

Science 243 

Character  of  the  middle  classes 244 

Effect  of  Henry  VIII.'s  institutions         ....       246 

INDEX 247 


MAPS. 
England  AND  Wales,  1485-1547     .     To  face  Title-page 

Campaign  OF  Terouenne 11^) 

Battle  OF  Flodden  Field 119 

Cleves,  Mark,  Berg,  Juliers 214 


THE  CHIEF  EUROPEAN  SOVEREIGNS  AND 
MEMBERS  OF  ROYAL  FAMILIES. 

(1485-1547.) 

A.   Emperors  of  Germany. 

1.  Frederic  III.  (first  Emperor  of  the  Austrian  House  of 

Hapsburg),  King  of  the  Romans  1440;  crowned 
Emperor  1459;  died  1493. 

2.  Maximilian  I.  (sonofFredericIIL), Kingof  the  Romans 

i486,  never  crowned;  styles  himself  '  Emperor  Elect' 
from  1503;  died  15 19.  Married  (a)  Mary  of  Bur- 
gundy; (J))  Anne  of  Bretagne;  (by  proxy — marriage 
dissolved) ;  (r)  Bianca  Maria  Sforza  of  Milan. 

Has  issue — [a)  The  Archduke  Philip,  who  inherits 
the  Netherlands  from  his  mother,  Mary  of  Bur- 
gundy, 1483;  marries  Juana  of  Castile  1505; 
dies  1506.  (<5)  Margaret  of  Savoy;  betrothed  to 
Charles  VIH. ;  married  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy. 

3.  Charles  V.  (son  of  Philip  and  Juana),  King  of  Spain 

15 16;  King  of  the  Romans  15x9;  crowned  Emperor 
1531  ;  abdicated  1558. 

B.   Sovereigns  of  Spain. 

f  Ferdinand  King  of  Aragon      .  .  1479-1504 

"   I  Isabella  Queen  of  Castile    .         .  1474-1504 

2.  Juana  Queen  of  Spain      .         .  .   1504-15 16 

3.  Charles  V 1516-1558 


Chief  European  Sovereigns.  xv 

C.   Kings  of  France. 

1.  Louis  XI.         .        .  1461-1483 

2.  Charles  VIII.     ,     .  1483-1498")  Successively  married 

3.  Louis  XII.        .         .  1498-15 15 /to  Anne  of  Bretagne. 

4.  Francis  I.  .        .    .  1515-1547 

D.   Kings  of  England. 

1.  Richard  III 1483-1485 

2.  Henry  VII 1485-1509 

3.  Henry  VIII 1509-1547 

E.   Popes. 

1.  Alexander  VI 1492-1503 

2.  Pius  III 1503 

3.  Julius  II 1503-1513 

4.  LeoX 1515-1521 

5.  Adrian  VI 1522-1523 

6.  Clement  VII 1523-1534 

7.  Paul  HI i534-i549 

F.   Members  of  the  English  Royal  Family. 

(a)  The  daughters  of  Henry  VII. : — 

1.  Margaret,  married  {a)  James  IV.  of  Scotland;  (i^)  Lord 

Angus;  [c)  Lord  Methuen;  and  was  mother  of  {a) 
James  V.  of  Scotland  ;  {l>)  of  Lady  Margaret  Lennox 
(mother  of  Lord  Darnley), 

2.  Mary,  married  {a)  Louis  XII. ;  [b)  Charles  Brandon, 

Duke  of  Suffolk ;  and  was  the  grandmother  of  Lady 
Jane  Grey. 

[b)  The  House  of  Lancaster  (descended  from  John  of  Gaunt 

through  the  Beauforts) : — 
The  Lady  Margaret  (mother  of  Henry  VII.). 
{c)  The    House   of  York  (descended   from    Lionel    Duke    of 
Clarence,  the  third  son,  and  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  the 
sixth  son,  of  Edward  HI) : — 


Chief  European  Sovereigns. 

1.  Margaret  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  sister  of  Edward  IV. 

2.  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Edward  IV.,  married  Henry  VII., 

died  1501. 

3.  The  Earl  of  Lincoln  (killed   at   Stoke  1487)  and  the 

Earl  of  Suffolk  (beheaded  15 13),  sons  of  Elizabeth, 
sister  of  Edward  IV. 

4.  The  Earl  of  Warwick,  son  of  George  Duke  of  Clarence 

(beheaded  1499),  and  his  sister. 

5.  The  Countess  of  Salisbury  (beheaded  1539);  had  issue 

[a)  Lord  Montagu  (beheaded   1 539);    (3)   Cardinal 
Pole  ;  (c)  Sir  Geoffrey  Pole  (and  others). 

6.  The  Marquis  of  Exeter  (beheaded  1539);  his  mother 

was  Lady  Courtenay,  daughter  of  Edward  IV. 

7.  The  Duke  of  Buckingham  (beheaded  1521)  was  de- 

scended from   Thomas  of  Woodstock,  sixth  son  of 
Edward  III. 

8.  The  Earl  of  Surrey  (beheaded  1546) ;  had  the  same  de- 

scent through  his  mother,  who  was  daughter  of  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham. 

G.   Members  of  the  Scottish  Royal  Family. 

1.  Mary  (Queen  of  Scots),  daughter  of  James  V. 

2.  The  Duke  of  Albany,  son  of  a  younger  brother  of 

James  III. 

3.  The  Earl  of  Arran,  son  of  a  sister  of  James  III. 

4.  Margaret  Lady  Lennox,  daughter  of  Queen  Margaret 

of   Scotland    by   Lord  Angus;     mother    of    Henry 
Darnley. 


THE  EARLY  TUDORS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    GROWTH    OF    DESPOTISM    IN    EUROPE    DURING    THE 
FIFTEENTH   CENTURY. 

For  those  who,  like  ourselves,  are  trained  under  free 
institutions,  it  is  hard  to  realise  that  great 
nations  are  generally  those  which  have  been  yespotUm"^ 
long  under  the  stern  discipline  of  a  despot- 
ism at  last  shaken  off.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  this 
form  of  government,  extending  over  the  whole  of  a  large 
country,  and  ruling  all  things  within  it,  has  been  more  able 
than  any  other  to  create  a  strong  sense  of  nationality  over- 
powering narrow  local  differences,  to  establish  thorough 
internal  security,  and  to  direct  the  people  to  enterprises 
requiring  great  exertion  in  the  general  cause,  and  leading 
to  strong  enthusiasms,  whether  through  defeat  or  victory. 
It  has  been  mostly  when  their  energies  have  been  thus 
guided  that  nations  have  forgotten  the  jealousies  of  pro- 
vince against  province,  county  against  county,  district 
against  district,  and  learned  that  the  members  of  one  State 
are  immeasurably  nearer  to  one  another  than  any  foreigner 
can  be.  And  when  this  feeling  for  the  first  time  gains 
strength,  and  a  great  nation  is  brought  to  feel  its  own 
I 


2  The  Early  Tudor s.  1400- 

unity,  how  many  important  consequences  spring  from  the 
change !  A  people  which  has  been  thus  ruled,  if  only 
the  despotism  does  not  last  long  enough  to  break  its 
spirit,  is  sure  to  feel  intensely.  Loyalty  to  the  power 
which  has  made  it  one  becomes  a  passion,  sometimes 
even  a  madness.  Bravery  makes  no  account  of  its  own 
life  or  of  other  men's.  Self-devotion  prevails  in  many 
of  its  most  striking  forms.  High-spirited  men  become 
proud  of  laying  down  their  freedom  at  the  feet  of  a 
master  who  gives  them  in  exchange  for  it  the  prospect 
of  ruling  over  their  fellow-men  as  his  deputies.  In  such 
times  we  must  not  indeed  expect  to  find  justice,  humanity, 
and  peacefulness,  or  even  truth  and  honour  as  now 
understood ;  these  are  plants  which  spring  only  from 
the  soil  of  freedom.  But  we  can  say  that  the  national 
mind,  in  order  that  it  may  some  time  feel  truth  and 
right  strongly,  is  at  any  rate  learning  to  feel  so7nethmg 
strongly.  That  something  may  be,  and  often  is,  perverse ; 
indeed  it  is  with  a  people  as  with  a  child,  in  whom 
we  tolerate  a  certain  violence  and  misdirection  of  will, 
because  we  know  that  such  strength  is  the  very  seed- 
bed of  future  excellence,  and  that  no  one  can  be  really 
great  of  whom  we  cannot  say  that  '  cjuidquid  volet 
valde  volet.'  Such,  then,  is  on  the  whole  the  meaning  of 
those  who  say  that  few  nations  become  really  great 
without  having  been  under  despotism  for  a  time.  In 
this  sense  eminent  Italian  politicians,  even  of  the  present 
day,  sometimes  hold  to  Macchiavelli's  opinion,  that  it  is 
the  greatest  of  national  misfortunes  to  their  countrymen 
never  to  have  been  welded  together  by  passing  through 
this  stage ;  and  far-seeing  thinkers  among  ourselves  have 
considered  the  present  constitution  of  Russia  not  un- 
favourable to  her  chance  of  being  great  at  last,  seeing  that 
despotism  has  certainly  built  up  her  unity  and  inspired 


-1500  Growth  of  Despotism  in  Europe.  3 

her  with  the  spirit  of  obedience  and  self-sacrifice,  without 
hitherto  breaking  down  the  energy  which  will  some  time 
achieve  her  political  freedom. 

Whether  the  history  of  England  from  the  sixteenth 
century  onwards  proves  the  truth  of  this  theory  will  be 
best  settled  when  we  have  gone  through  it.  It  is  plain 
enough,  at  any  rate,  that  a  despotism  did  establish  itself 
under  the  Tudors,  and  that  many  of  the  qualities  likely 
to  characterise  a  nation  thus  governed  did,  in  fact,  show 
themselves  in  Englishmen.  We  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
see  them  proud  of  their  national  unity,  bearing  them- 
selves haughtily  towards  foreigners,  immoderately  fond 
of  aggressive  expeditions,  recklessly  brave,  deeply  and 
sometimes  even  insanely  loyal.  The  object  of  this  work 
is  to  trace  the  rise  of  the  autocracy  which  had  these 
effects;  and,  as  the  history  of  England  is  seldom  or 
never  so  cut  off  from  that  of  the  Continent  as  to  have 
nothing  in  common  with  what  goes  on  there  at  the  same 
time,  it  will  be  well,  by  way  of  introduction,  to  show  that 
increasing  despotism  was  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  law, 
so  to  speak,  of  advance  in  the  countries  of  Western 
Europe.  Thus  we  shall  presently  be  enabled  to  see 
what  changes  among  ourselves  sprang  from  direct  imita- 
tion of  our  neighbours,  and  what  others  arose  from  causes 
of  a  general  character  affecting  all  countries  alike. 

Spain,    as   might  be    expected  from   the   mixture   of 
Eastern  blood  in  her  people,  and  the  military 
type  of  her  civilisation,  had  been  first  to  enter      in  Spain."* 
upon  the  course  of  absolutism  which  for  a 
time  raised  her  power  to  such  a  portentous  height,  and 
then  laid  it  prostrate.    Indeed  her  feuds  of  the  Trastamare 
family  had  been  as  effective  as  our  Wars  of  the  Roses  a 
hundred  years  later  in  clearing  off  the  turbulent  nobles, 
and  thus  enabling  the  Crown  of  Castile  to  strengthen 


4  The  Early   Tudors.  1390- 

itself  by  the  help  of  the  Commons.  Under  the  young 
Henry  III.  (1390),  the  husband  of  Catherine  of  Lan- 
caster, the  Third  Estate  was  in  remarkable  prosperity; 
commerce  and  manufactures  improved  greatly,  and  the 
history  of  the  country  might  have  been  different  but 
for  Henry's  death  in  1406,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty- 
eight.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  John  II.,  whose 
reign  of  forty-eight  years  was  little  else  than  a  per- 
petual conspiracy  against  his  subjects'  freedom.  Aided 
by  his  imperious  minister  Alvaro  de  Luna,  he  excluded 
from  the  royal  Council  the  deputies  of  the  Commons, 
raised  taxes  without  legislative  sanction,  and  issued 
pragmaticas  asserting  his  own  right  to  make  laws  for 
his  subjects.  When  opposition  to  these  arbitrary  mea- 
sures was  threatened,  he  devised  and  carried  out  success- 
fully a  wicked  scheme  for  dividing  the  popular  party. 
Some  of  the  towns  were  induced,  first  to  petition  that 
they  might  defray  the  expenses  of  their  deputies  during 
the  session  of  the  Cortes;  and  then,  with  a  surprising 
want  of  political  foresight,  to  allow  them  to  be  excused 
attendance  altogether,  in  order  to  save  the  same  charges. 
Thus  after  a  while  only  eighteen  towns  sent  deputies, 
the  rest  being  obliged  to  entrust  their  interests  to  these. 
So  successfully  were  the  seeds  of  division  thus  sown,  that 
in  1 506,  when  some  of  the  excluded  towns  wished  to  have 
their  ancient  rights  back,  they  were  vigorously  opposed 
by  the  privileged  cities,  which  maintained  that  the  right 
of  representation  was  theirs  alone.  The  policy  of 
John  II.  was  followed  by  Henry  IV.,  Isabella  of  Castile's 
elder  brother,  who  also  threw  the  trade  of  the  country 
into  utter  disorder  by  debasing  the  coinage,  besides 
demoralising  society  by  his  own  bad  example.  Isabella 
herself,  on  her  accession  in  1474,  resolved  to  resume  the 
old  policy  of  relying  on  the  Commons,  to  which  she  was 


-1592  Growth  of  Despotism  in  Europe.  5 

the  more  inclined  from  her  earnest  desire  to  benefit  the 
people  which  she  ruled.  By  decrees  obtained  from  the 
courts  of  justice  she  wrested  from  the  nobles  many  of  the 
estates,  annuities,  and  other  grants  which  they  had  un- 
constitutionally got  from  her  predecessors.  Besides  this, 
both  she  and  her  husband,  Ferdinand,  King  of  Aragon, 
employed  men  of  humble  birth  in  posts  which  had  been 
always  held  by  nobles ;  above  all,  she  adopted,  and 
placed  under  the  patronage  of  the  Crown,  the  '  Holy 
Hermandad,'  an  association  of  the  towns  for  the  repres- 
sion of  violence ;  using  it,  in  defiance  of  the  nobles,  as  a 
national  police  which  she  could  entirely  trust.  It  must 
not  for  a  moment  be  thought  that  her  patronage  of  the 
people  aimed  in  the  least  at  restoring  their  ancient 
liberties :  on  the  contrary,  by  establishing  and  enthusias- 
tically supporting  the  Inquisition  in  her  dominions, 
Isabella  made  any  return  to  constitutional  methods  im- 
possible, besides  deeply  staining  her  own  character  for 
honour,  patriotism,  and  humanity.  Satisfied  with  making 
the  towns  prosper  materially,  and  with  using  their  support 
against  the  grandees,  she  never  foresaw  that  they  would 
so  soon  be  trying  to  wrest  from  her  grandson  by  force  of 
arms  the  liberty  which  she  denied  them.  Few  passages 
of  history  are  sadder  than  the  account  of  their  rebellion 
against  the  young  Charles  V.  in  1 520 ;  when,  amidst  a  host 
of  quite  rational  petitions  for  the  better  conduct  of  justice, 
for  the  relief  of  taxation,  for  a  native  administration,  for 
the  abolition  of  all  privileges  obtained  at  the  expense  of 
the  Commons,  for  the  reform  of  the  Cortes,  and  for 
sessions  once  in  three  years  at  least,  they  still,  short- 
sighted like  their  fathers,  demanded  that  the  estates  of 
the  nobles  should  be  re-annexed  to  the  Crown — as  if  they 
wished  to  destroy  all  barriers  against  despotism  except 


6  The  Early  Tudors.  1461- 

their  own.  Accordingly,  when  their  forces  were  beaten 
on  the  fatal  field  of  Villalar,  and  their  leaders  sent  to 
execution  by  Charles's  ministers,  the  mainspring  of  popular 
freedom  in  Spain  was  broken,  and  they  entered  upon  a 
long  period  of  decay  which  has  not  closed  even  now,  and 
which  hardly  required  that  Philip  II.  should  ensure  it  by 
destroying,  as  he  did  in  1592,  the  last  fragments  of  real 
power  possessed  by  the  Cortes  both  in  Castile  and  in 
Aragon.  These  changes  were  the  more  melancholy 
because  Spain  had  in  her  old  institutions  a  thoroughly 
good  foundation  for  rational  freedom.  Her  Cortes  dated 
from  two  hundred  years  before  the  time  of  Simon  de 
Montfort,  and  had  the  completes!  control  over  state 
affairs.  The  accession  of  each  fresh  sovereign  required 
their  sanction,  and  they  exercised  most  fully  those 
powers  of  remonstrating  against  grievances  and  of  voting 
supplies  which  have  always  been  the  two  pivots  of  Eng- 
lish freedom.  In  one  point  they  went  beyond  us;  for 
their  petitions,  if  accepted  by  the  King,  had  at  once  the 
force  of  law.  In  Aragon,  where  the  ancient  liberties  were 
even  stronger  than  in  Castile,  the  '  Justicia '  judged 
officially  and  of  right  whether  the  King's  letters  were 
genuine  and  his  acts  constitutional  ;  while  the  acknow- 
ledged privileges  of  the  kingdom  acted  as  Magna  Charta 
did  among  ourselves.  Catalonia  and  Valencia  again  had 
all  the  free  spirit  which  goes  with  maritime  enterprise. 
Here  the  traders  were  often  knights,  all  being  held  equal 
within  the  mercantile  guilds,  and  the  sons  of  merchants 
valued  as  high  as  those  of  noblemen  if  hostages  were 
required  in  war.  No  cause  less  baleful  than  the  bigotry 
which  created  the  Inquisition  could  have  destroyed  such 
safeguards  and  the  high  hopes  which  might  have  been 
founded  on  them. 


-1483  Growth  of  Despotism  in  Europe.  7 

Before  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  similar 
struggle  with  the  nobles  in  France  had  also  ended  in 
favour  of  the  Crown.  Yet  no  sovereign  could 
have  been  weaker  than  Louis  XI.  at  his  acces-  hl^tvanc? 
sion  in  1461,  and  when,  four  years  later,  his 
nobles  began  the  war  of  the  '  Bien  Public '  against  him,  he 
was  surrounded  by  great  feudatories,  all  of  whom  he  had 
offended  bitterly.  Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
held,  in  France,  Burgundy  proper,  with  Artois  and 
Franche-Comte ;  beyond  it,  Brabant,  Limburg,  Hainault, 
and  the  wealthy  cities  of  Flanders  ;  and  was  on  the  point 
of  excluding  France  from  all  communication  with  the 
rest  of  Europe,  except  through  his  States,  by  seizing  the 
Proven9al  dominions  of  Rene  of  Anjou.  The  Dukes  of 
Bretagne  and  Bourbon,  and  the  Count  of  Armagnac  with 
his  Gascons,  were  equally  opposed  to  Louis ;  and  there 
was  not  one  of  these  potentates  who  would  have  scrupled 
for  a  moment  to  call  in  against  him  the  English  or  any 
other  foreigners.  In  spite  of  all  this,  he  succeeded  by 
unresting  vigilance  and  craft  in  baffling  them  one  by  one, 
and  in  establishing  his  own  power  on  the  ruin  of  theirs. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Commons  were  with  him,  and 
favour  to  them  was  a  ruling  principle  of  his  reign. 
He  was  never  tired  of  encouraging  trade  (as  when  he 
founded  the  silk  manufacture  in  France)  or  of  increasing 
the  privileges  of  the  cities.  As  his  reign  advanced,  and 
enemy  after  enemy  fell  before  him,  agriculture  flourished 
more  and  more  from  the  ever-increasing  security  of  the 
country.  His  taxation  was  heavy,  for  he  bought  off  such 
enemies  as  Edward  IV.  instead  of  fighting  them ;  yet, 
in  spite  of  Commines'  invidious  comparison  between  his 
revenue  of  4,700,000  francs  and  the  1,800,000  paid  under 
his  father  Charles  VII.,  there  is  no  appearance  that  his 
imposts  were  considered  excessive  in  his  lifetime.     Such 


8  The  Early  Tudors.  1461-1483 

were  some  of  the  points  marking  his  government  of  the 
masses  ;  he  was  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  a  supporter 
of  the  low  against  the  high.  Yet  all  that  he  tried  to 
do  on  their  behalf  was  more  than  counterbalanced  by 
his  masterful  administration.  Other  kings  had  fitfully 
claimed  a  right  to  collect  taxes  by  their  sole  authority ; 
precedents  to  that  effect  had  been  common  in  the  reigns 
of  John,  Charles  V.,  Charles  VI.,  and  Charles  VII.  But 
Louis  all  through  his  long  reign  of  twenty-two  years, 
never  raised  money  in  any  other  way,  and  thus  made 
his  people  forget  the  very  notion  of  freedom.  For,  though 
isolated  thinkers  like  Philippe  de  Commines  still  held 
that  a  king  who  levies  money  unconstitutionally  is 
tyrannous  and  violent,  and  that,  as  long  as  he  does  so, 
he  will  never  be  really  strong,  the  States-General  had 
altogether  forgotten  such  ideas  when  they  assembled  at 
Tours  after  Louis's  death  to  provide  for  the  regency.  Al- 
though they  took  at  first  a  high  tone,  and  claimed  the 
abolition  of  the  '  taille '  and  other  arbitrary  taxes,  they 
still  allowed  themselves  to  be  worsted  by  a  manoeuvre 
of  the  Court,  and  granted  the  new  king  the  right  to  levy 
the  taxes  of  Charles  VII.,  with  an  addition  of  twenty-five 
per  cent.  Their  stipulation  that  this  power  should  be 
treated  as  a  concession  of  their  own,  and  last  for  only  two 
years,  after  which  the  States  were  to  be  assembled  again, 
hardly  looks  like  a  serious  attempt  at  freedom,  when  we 
remember  that  a  French  king  could  get  his  revenue  from 
the  Provincial  Councils  much  more  easily  than  he  could 
from  the  States-General,  and  was  therefore  most  unwilling 
to  summon  the  latter,  at  the  risk  of  remonstrances  against 
every  act  of  his  government  and  every  detail  of  his  house- 
hold arrangements.  Thus  Louis  XL,  from  the  success 
with  which  he  organised  a  system  of  arbitrary  taxation, 
and  established  it  by  means  of  his  personal  popularity. 


I399~H85     Growth  of  Despotism  in  Europe.  9 

must  needs  be  considered  as  one  of  the  great  overthrowers 
of  liberty  in  France.  As  to  other  points  of  administra- 
tion, it  is  almost  superfluous  to  remark  how  absolute  he 
was.  No  purely  patriotic  care  for  his  subjects'  welfare 
can  be  ascribed  to  the  king  who  had  men  tried  before 
judges  who  were  to  have  their  property  if  they  were 
found  guilty ;  nor  can  he  be  considered  tender  of  their 
lives  who  ordered  his  guards  to  shoot  down  every  one 
who  came  near  his  palace  walls  before  a  stated  hour  in 
the  morning  or  of  their  personal  freedom  who  enclosed 
them  at  pleasure  in  iron  cages.  We  must,  therefore, 
ascribe  his  care  for  commerce  and  the  towns  to  the  ab- 
solute necessity  under  which  he  lay  of  finding  popular 
support  against  his  too  powerful  feudatories.  That 
this  view  of  interest  ripened  into  a  positive  sympathy 
with  the  industrious  classes,  which  showed  itself  in 
many  simple  and  natural  acts  of  kindness,  we  are  in  no 
degree  called  upon  to  deny.  But  it  is  not  the  less  true 
that  he  demoralised  these  very  classes,  first  through 
the  crooked  contrivances  by  which  he  quelled  their  op- 
pressors, and  then  still  more  completely  by  his  resolution 
to  allow  them  nothing  like  political  as  distinct  from 
municipal  freedom ;  and  thus  left  them  at  his  death  pre- 
pared to  submit  to  any  tyranny  which  the  course  of  time 
might  produce. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enumerate  the  various  tyrannies 
which  had  raised  themselves  at  the  time  we  are  considering 
upon  the  ruins  of  popular  freedom  in  every 
great  city  of  Italy,  with  the  one  exception  of    ,^^EngVand 
Venice ;  nor  yet  those  which  the  weakness  of 
emperors  like  Frederic  III.  had  allowed  to  begin  in  the 
various  States   of  Germany.     But  the  last  Plantagenet 
reigns  in  England  are  so  important  as  paving  the  way  for 
the  Tudor  despotism,  that  a  few  words  must  needs  be 


lo  The  Early   Tudor s.  ^399" 

said  upon  them,  under  the  guidance  of  the  latest  and 
most  learned  of  our  constitutional  historians. 

The  fifteenth  century  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the 
accession  of  the  Lancastrian  dynasty  in  1399.  As 
regards  the  points  on  which  political  writers  most  fre- 
quently dwell,  Henry  IV.  and  Henry  V.  were  strongly 
inclined — the  former  from  his  defective  title  and  the  latter 
from  an  innate  power  of  influencing  men  as  he  would — 
to  a  really  constitutional  government.  Again  and  again 
did  Henry  IV.  listen  to  the  remonstrances  of  his  Parlia- 
ments ;  as  in  1401,  when  they  claimed  that  he  should 
accept  no  account  of  their  proceedings  except  from 
themselves  ;  in  1404,  when  he  consented  on  their  peti- 
tion to  remove  atiy  councillor^distasteful  to  them,  and 
in  particular  to  dismiss  all  aliens  from  the  Queen's 
service ;  in  1406,  when  they  insisted  that  he  should 
give  an  account  of  his  expenditure  and  dismiss  '  the 
rascally  crew '  which  composed  his  household ;  and  in 
1407,  when  the  Commons  protested  against  any  bill  of 
supply  originating  with  the  Lords.  Besides  this,  parlia- 
mentary grants  to  him  were  strictly  appropriated  to  their 
intended  purposes — a  restriction  which  we  are  inclined 
to  consider  an  improvement  of  modern  times,  and  one 
to  which  even  Cromwell  as  Protector  was  unwilling  to 
submit.  The  Parliaments  of  Henry  V.  were  naturally 
compliant,  from  the  overflowing  favour  with  which  a 
war  in  France  was  regarded,  where,  as  Commines  re- 
peatedly notes,  every  Englishman  made  sure  of  enriching 
himself  by  plunder  and  the  ransom  of  captives  ;  thus  in 
1417  and  1419  large  subsidies  were  willingly  paid.  When, 
however,  they  did  make  remonstrances,  he  was,  like  his 
father,  always  ready  to  attend  ;  as  when  they  prayed  in 
1414  '  that  there  be  never  no  law  made '  (on  their  petition), 
'  and  engrossed  as  statute  and  law,  neither  by  addition 


-1485  Growth  of  Despotism  in  Europe.  11 

nor  diminution,  by  no  manner  of  term  which  shall  change 
the  sentence  and  the  intent  asked ' — a  point  which  was 
to  come  out  on  a  memorable  occasion  in  after-time. 

As  to  the  safety  for  life  under  these  sovereigns,  it  can- 
not be  called  unsatisfactory,  except  as  regards,  first,  the 
exercise  of  martial  law  in  war-time,  and,  secondly,  the 
effect  of  statutes  coming  from  Parliament  itself.  It  has 
been  well  said  that,  in  beheading  Scrope  and  Mowbray 
in  1405,  and  the  Southampton  conspirators  in  141 5, 
Henry  IV.  and  his  son  were  sowing  the  wind  that 
their  dynasty  might  reap  the  whirlwind ;  inasmuch  as 
from  these  precedents  sprang  the  practice,  so  universal 
in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  of  putting  the  captured  leaders 
to  death  after  each  batde,  either  by  a  mere  order,  or  by 
the  sentence  of  such  men  as  Montague  or  Tiptoft,  who 
tried  prisoners  '  summarily  and  plainly,  without  any  noise 
and  shew  of  judgment,'  and  sometimes  according  to  the 
law  of  some  foreign  State  where  the  judge  had  received 
his  university  education.  As  for  the  barbarous  executions 
which  followed  the  statute  '  de  Haeretico  Comburendo,' 
these  of  course  are  not  technically  acts  of  royal  tyranny, 
since  the  authority  for  them  wa=  parliamentary,  and 
grounded  on  a  belief  which,  though  in  itself  both  cruel 
and  stupid,  had  yet  darkened  all  counsel  ever  since  the 
days  when  it  misled  the  strong  intellect  of  Augustine. 
Here,  accordingly,  the  State,  the  Crown,  and  above  all 
the  Church,  had  to  share  the  terrible  responsibility 
among  them. 

There  was,  therefore,  under  the  early  Lancastrian 
kings  some  ground  for  the  admiration  of  England,  as 
contrasted  with  France,  which  is  expressed  alike  by 
Philippe  de  Commines  and  by  the  English  Fortescue, 
whom  Commines  may  have  seen  during  his  exile  in  France. 
Under  these  kings  we  really  had  what  Fortescue  calls  a 


12  The  Early  Ttidors.  1399" 

'  dominium  regale  et  politicum :'  they  would  not  have  ven- 
tured, as  Edward  III.  did,  to  assent  to  a  petition  of  Par- 
liament, and  then  a  few  weeks  later  to  rescind  the  Act  by 
their  own  authority  on  the  ground  that  they  had  '  dis- 
simulated,' never  having  really  intended  to  grant  it.    But  a 
woful  change  came  over  England  with  the  accession  of  the 
House  of  York.     First  the  Privy  Council  began  to  assume 
the  powers  which  made  it  such  a  terrible  engine  of  oppres- 
sion under  Henry  VII.  and  his  successors.     This  body 
really  had  from  Parliament  a  standing  authority — to  be  ex- 
ercised, however,  under  strict  supervision — by  which  they 
could  suspend  the  execution  of  various  important  statutes. 
In  pecuniary  matters  they  were  authorised  in  case  of  emer- 
gency to  pledge,  up  to  a  certain  limited  amount,  the  credit 
of  the  kingdom — a  practice  which  Commines  seems  to 
have  had  in  mind  when  he  says  that  in  his  judgment  such 
emergencies  as  make  it  really  necessary  for  kings  to  collect 
money  more  quickly  than  by  the  normal  processes  of  law 
hardly  ever  occur.     As  the  king  had  long  ceased  to  judge 
in  person,  and  the  Council  was  considered  chiefly  as  his 
substitute,  its  members  could  not  actually  try  cases.    But  to 
examine  men  beforetrialwhen  suspected  of  treason,  and  to 
rack  them  for  the  purpose  of  extracting  evidence,  appears, 
in  spite  of  Fortescue's  declaration  that  torture  was  unknown 
to  the  English  law,  to  have  been  thought  within  the  royal 
prerogative,  and  therefore  within  the  competence  of  the 
Council.     The  first  registered  instances  of  such  torture 
are  in  1468,  under  Edward  IV.,  when  more  than  one  of 
Queen  Margaret's  messengers  were  burned  in  the  feet 
or   racked   to   make   them  discover  their    accomplices. 
The  jurisdiction  of  the  Constable  under  which  Tiptoft  and 
Montague  acted  (the  latter  even  impaling  prisoners  after 
death)  was  part  of  the  same  bad  system.     Edward  IV. 
also  introduced  the  system  of  perpetual  forfeitures  for 


-1485  Growth  of  Despoiistn  in  Europe.  13 

treason.  Before  his  time  restoration  after  a  period  of 
eclipse  had  been  the  understood  rule  ;  he  set  this  principle 
absolutely  at  nought  by  bestowing  the  Percy  earldom  on 
a  Nevile  and  that  of  Pembroke  on  a  Herbert.  When  we 
add  to  these  changes  the  well-known  extension  in  Edward's 
reign  of  the  system  of  benevolences  and  forced  loans,  the 
extreme  infrequency  of  parliaments,  and  the  trivial  char- 
acter of  the  business  which  they  were  allowed  to  take  in 
hand,  together  with  the  frequent  executions  of  those  whom 
the  king  feared — including  his  own  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Clarence — we  shall  readily  understand  what  avast  breach 
in  the  Constitution  this  reign  really  made ;  a  breach  which 
the  reign  of  Richard  III.,  inclined  as  he  naturally  was  to 
support  the  weakness  of  his  title  and  to  put  his  crimes 
out  of  remembrance  by  popular  concessions,  was  much 
too  short  to  repair ;  especially  as  his  necessities  after  a 
while  drove  him  to  collect  money  by  methods  hardly 
differing  from  the  illegal  ones  which  he  had  professed  to 
abolish.  Accordingly,  Henry  VH.  on  succeeding  to  the 
crown  found  himself  very  slightly  fettered  by  constitutional 
precedents,  and  would  doubtless  have  been  a  violently 
oppressive  governor  if  he  had  not  been  far  more  inclined 
to  the  sort  of  chicane  natural  to  one  whose  early  life  had 
been  passed  in  avoiding  dangers,  and  who  in  many  things 
kept  before  his  eyes  the  example  of  Louis  XI.  He 
thoroughly  realised  that  to  govern  as  he  chose  two  main 
conditions  were  required  ;  he  must  need  few  or  no  sub- 
sidies, and  he  must  avoid  the  foreign  wars  which  would 
make  subsidies  indispensable,  and  which  might  also  raise 
up  competitors  for  the  Crown.  Such  then  was  the 
starting-point  of  the  prince  who  was  to  inaugurate  more 
than  a  hundred  years  of  autocratic  government  in  Eng- 
land. And  by  keeping  these  two  principles  constantly 
in  view,  he  gave  a  new  political  character  to  the  century 


14  The  Early  Ttidors.  ^397~ 

which  followed  his  accession,  which  it  will,  in  the  follow- 
ing chapters,  be  our  business  to  trace. 


CHAPTER  11. 


HENRY   OF   RICHMOND.      BOSWORTH    FIELD.      THE   CORO- 
NATION.     THE  SWEATING  SICKNESS,    I485,    i486. 

It  is  desirable  first  to  sketch  the  early  life  and  the 
accession  of  the  sovereign  who  was  in  so  many  ways  to 
influence  the  history  of  England. 

Henry  of    Richmond  could  claim  a  twofold  royal  or 

quasi-royal   descent.      His    father,  Edmund    Tudorrby 

creation  Earl  of  Richmond,  was  son  to  Catherine  of  France, 

the  widow  of  Henry  V.     Obviously  no  original  title  to  the 

throne  could  be  thus  derived,  even  if  it  were 

Henry  s  .         ,  ,        . 

claim  to  the  ccrtam  that  Catherme  was  ever  married  to 
Owen  Tudor  (of  which  unfortunately  no  evi- 
dence is  known  to  exist) ;  yet,  with  the  ideas  of  succession 
prevalent  in  those  times,  such  an  origin  might  add  force 
to  other  stronger  claims.  Henry's  maternal  descent 
constituted  such  a  claim,  inasmuch  as  his  mother, 
Margaret  Beaufort,  was  great-granddaughter  to  Edward 
III.'s  fourth  son,  John  of  Gaunt ;  and,  although  the 
Beauforts  were  illegitimate,  yet  after  their  birth  John 
married  their  mother,  Catherine  Roet  (the  sister-in-law 
of  the  poet  Chaucer),  and  succeeded  in  inducing  Richard 
II.  to  carry  through  Parliament  in  1397  an  Act  for  their 
legitimation,  which,  however,  did  not  allow  them  to  bear 
the  name  of  Plantagenet.  This  Act  was  confirmed  in 
1407  by  Henry  IV.,  who  seems  to  have  thought  that 
by  introducing  the  words  '  excepta  dignitate  regia  '  into 
Richard's  original  grant,  as  preserved  in  the  Patent  Rolls, 


-1485  Henry  of  Richmond.  15 

he  was  barring  the  Beauforts  from  succession  to  the 
throne  ;  although  the  document  of  confirmation,  as  sub- 
mitted by  him  to  Parliament,  contained  no  such  exception. 
As  the  latter  was  of  course  authoritative,  Henry  inherited 
from  John  of  Gaunt  a  parliamentary  title  to  the  throne  in 
case  of  failure,  first  of  the  lines  of  John's  elder  brothers, 
and,  secondly,  of  heirs  from  his  earlier  marriages.  Both 
of  these  contingencies  had  in  great  measure  occurred. 
The  line  of  the  Black  Prince,  Edward's  eldest  son,  had 
ended  with  the  unhappy  Richard  II.  in  1399;  William, 
the  next  brother,  died  early,  and  the  House  of  York,  the 
representatives  of  Lionel,  the  third  brother,  had  been 
almost  exterminated.  As  for  John's  earher  marriages, 
the  Lancastrian  line,  beginning  with  Henry  IV.  (whose 
mother  was  Blanche  of  Lancaster),  had  also  become 
extinct  when  the  young  Edward,  son  of  Henry  VI.,  was 
murdered  by  his  uncles  on  the  field  of  Tewkesbury.  Thus, 
when  Henry  VII.  succeeded  to  the  throne,  his  only  rivals 
in  title  were  John  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  the 
son  of  Richard  III.'s  sister  Elizabeth  (who  had  been 
declared  by  Richard  heir  to  the  throne)  ;  his  brother  the 
Earl  of  Suffolk  ;  Edward  Plantagenet,  Earl  of  Warwick, 
the  son  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  put  to  death  by  Edward 
IV.,  his  sister  Margaret  (afterwards  Countess  of  Salis- 
bury), and  Elizabeth,  the  daughter  of  Edward  IV. 

Margaret     Beaufort,     Henry's     mother,     successively 
Countess  of   Richmond  and  of  Derby,  was,  as  will  be 
shown  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  women  in  English  history.       Margaret 
Her  father  was  John  Beaufort,  the  first  Duke 
of  Somerset.     On  his  death  in  1444,  she  became  the  ward 
of  William  de  la  Pole,  Duke  of  Suffolk,  and  by  him  was 
married  at  the  age  of  nine  to  his  son,  who  afterwards  suc- 
ceeded to  the  title.     On  her  guardian's  attainder,  she  was 


l6  The  Early  Tudors.  1 397-1485 

transferred  to  the  custody  of  Edmund  Tudor,  Earl  of 
Richmond,  and  his  brother  Jasper  Tudor,  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  the  former  of  whom  became  her  husband  in 
1456,  her  former  marriage  having  been  simply  set  aside. 
Both  these  noblemen  had  been  treated  as  brothers  by 
Henry  VI.,  who  bestowed  great  care  on  their  education, 
and  received  from  them  loyal  support  in  the  civil  war, 
Jasper  Tudor  having  been  engaged  in  several  of  the  chief 
battles  and  attainted  with  the  King  and  Margaret  of  Anjou 
in  1461.  Edmund  Tudor  died  five  years  before  this  last 
event,  a  few  months  before  his  son's  birth.  The  Countess 
of  Richmond,  thus  widowed  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  lived 
for  awhile  in  her  brother-in-law's  castle  at  Pembroke,  and 
then,  in  1459,  married  her  cousin  Lord  Henry  Stafford, 
son  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  and  through  him 
descended  from  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  the  sixth  son  of 
Edward  III.  (the  Duke  of  Gloucester  who  was  so  foully 
kidnapped  and  murdered  by  Richard  H.)  In  1482  she 
was  again  a  widow;  but  soon  married  Lord  Stanley,  a 
widower  with  a  numerous  family.  There  are  circum- 
stances connected  with  this  last  union  which  give  the 
impression  that  she  entered  into  it  unwillingly,  and  merely 
in  order  to  gain  protection  for  her  son,  for  whom  alone  she 
seemed  really  to  live.  For  this  purpose  her  husband 
was  well  chosen,  as  he  was  a  strong  Yorkist.  Indeed, 
but  for  this  marriage,  her  life  would  have  been  forfeited 
in  1483  for  the  part  which  she  took  in  Buckingham's 
rebellion  against  Richard  III.  Soon  after  this  she  suc- 
ceeded in  gaining  over  Lord  Stanley  to  her  son's  party. 
In  147 1,  after  the  battle  of  Tewkesbury,  Jasper  Tudor 

followed  Margaret's  advice  by  sending  the 
hivasion  young  Henry,  his  nephew,  out  of  the  country. 

Henry  was  now  fifteen  years  old,  and  it  was 
his  mother's  wish  that  he  should  take  refuge  with  Louis  XL 


1 48 5  Henry  of  Richmond.  17 

of  France.  This  plan,  however,  failed,  for  he  was  wTecked 
on  the  Breton  coast,  and  had  to  pursue  the  life  of  imprison- 
ment and  surveillance  which  became  so  familiar  to  him. 
Indeed,  he  once  said  to  Philippe  de  Commines  '  that 
from  the  age  of  five  years  he  had  constantly  been  kept 
and  concealed  as  a  fugitive  in  prison.'  Edward  IV.  and 
Richard  III.  made  frequent  attempts  to  recover  him 
from  Francis  II.,  Duke  of  Bretagne  ;  Richard,  indeed, 
promised  to  make  him  his  son-in-law,  if  surrendered. 
Accordingly,  by  the  contrivance  of  Landois,  Francis's 
minister,  during  his  master's  illness,  Henry  was  sent  to 
St.  Malo  to  be  delivered  up  ;  but,  receiving  a  hint  from 
his  faithful  supporter  Bishop  Morton  that  Landois  was 
trying  to  get  for  his  master  in  exchange  for  his  surrender, 
the  earldom  of  Richmond  (which  had  formerly  been 
held  by  the  Dukes  of  Bretagne),  he  escaped,  first  into  the 
woods,  and  then  into  French  territory  at  Angers.  Here 
he  was  well  received ;  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
country  soon  made  it  highly  expedient  to  support  his  claim 
to  the  English  throne.  For  as  Richard  III.  was  sending 
archers  to  France  in  support  of  the  French  nobles  in 
their  attempt  to  raise  a  second  '  War  of  the  Public 
Good'  against  the  young  Charles  VIII.  (who  had  just 
succeeded  his  father  on  the  French  throne),  the  wise  and 
politic  Anne  of  Beaujeu,  Duchess  of  Bourbon,  who  was 
Regent  during  her  brother's  minority,  allowed  Henry,  in 
1485,  to  collect  about  2,000  men — 'des  plus  mechants 
qu'on  put  trouver,'  says  Philippe  de  Commines — and 
also  supplied  a  small  sum  of  money  to  help  the  descent 
on  England.  Accordingly,  on  August  7  in  that  year 
Henry  landed  at  Milford  Haven,  and  immediately  took 
the  decided  step  of  sending  circulars  calling  for  help 
against  Richard  as  an  usurper  of  his  rights  to  the  throne 
and  a  rebel.  He  then  marched  to  Shrewsbury,  where 
c 


1 8  The  Early  Titdors  .  1485 

he  received  the  adhesion  of  Rhys  ap  Thomas  and  other 
Welsh  chiefs.  Ap  Thomas  had  sworn  that  the  invader 
should  only  enter  England  '  over  his  belly.'  It  is  said  to 
have  been  suggested  by  high  authority  that  he  might 
discharge  himself  from  this  vow  by  lying  down  on  the 
ground  and  letting  Henry  step  over  him ;  or  by  going 
under  a  bridge  while  Henry  crossed  it  above  him.  In 
making,  not  for  Worcester  and  the  lower  Severn,  but  for 
Shrewsbury,  Henry  had  in  view  his  stepfather  Lord 
Stanley's  Cheshire  influence.  At  Stafford  he  heard  that 
Stanley  could  not  immediately  join  him  without  sacri- 
ficing the  life  of  his  son.  Lord  Strange,  whom  Richard  had 
seized  as  a  hostage;  but,  going  almost  alone  in  advance 
of  his  army  to  his  camp  at  Atherstone,  he  received  from 
him  the  most  encouraging  promises  of  support.  At 
almost  the  same  moment  he  was  joined  by  Sir  Walter 
Hungerford  and  Sir  Thomas  Bourchier,  two  of  Richard's 
trusted  officers,  with  a  body  of  choice  troops.  From 
Atherstone  he  turned  eastward  to  meet  Richard,  who 
was  encamped  between  Hinckley  and  Market  Bosworth. 
Even  with  the  reinforcements  just  acquired  he  had  scarcely 
5,000  men,  barely  half  the  number  of  Richard's  forces ; 
so  that  his  chance  of  victory  was  small,  unless  more 
leaders  deserted  to  him  in  the  battle. 

Mr.  Gairdner,  in  his  excellent  History  of  Richard  III., 
has  stated  very  clearly  the  causes  which  led  to  Henry's 
_    ,     ,  decisive  success.     Richard  had,  it  appears. 

Battle  of  .  '  rr  > 

Bosworth  been  misled  by  a  prediction  which  he  had 

heard  about  his  rival's  landing  at  Milford,  re- 
ferring, as  he  imagined,  to  a  small  village  of  that  name 
near  Christchurch  in  Hampshire.  Accordingly  he  had 
taken  very  few  effective  precautions  to  secure  the  fidelity 
of  the  Welsh  leaders,  or  of  Sir  W.  Stanley,  who  had 
the  chief  power  in  North  Wales.     As  to  Lord  Stanley, 


1485  Bosworth  Field,  19 

Richard  seems  to  have  had  the  incapacity  (not  uncommon 
in  tyrants)  to  reflect  that  those  whom  they  injure  are 
certain  to  remember  the  wrong  when  they  themselves 
have  forgotten  it.  His  soldiers  had  all  but  murdered 
Lord  Stanley  on  the  day  when  he  sent  Lord  Hastings  to 
the  block ;  yet  he  trusted  him  in  a  manner  to  the  last, 
making,  however,  a  breastwork  in  rear  of  his  own  camp, 
for  fear  of  being  attacked  by  him.  As  for  Sir  W.  Stanley, 
he  had  been  declared  a  traitor  even  while  commanding 
for  Richard.  It  is  most  satisfactory  to  find  that  Richard's 
chance  of  ultimate  success  had  departed  from  him  as 
soon  as  the  murder  of  his  nephews  in  the  Tower  be- 
came known.  Indeed,  revolt  after  revolt  thenceforward 
made  it  clear  that,  even  though  he  might  succeed  in 
cajoling  the  mother  and  sister  of  the  victims,  he  could 
not  silence  the  groans  and  indignation  with  which  his 
atrocious  act  was  stigmatised  in  every  street  and  market- 
place of  England.  The  feeling  against  him  was  like  that 
against  King  John  for  his  treatment  of  Arthur,  or  against 
the  Emperor  Sigismund  during  his  London  visit  in 
1416  for  the  murder  of  John  Hus.  Making  a  virtue  of 
necessity,  Richard  acknowledged,  as  we  are  informed, 
his  crime  in  his  final  address  to  his  soldiers,  but  pleaded 
that  he  had  'washed  it  away  by  salt  tears  and  strict 
penance.'  He  was  however  quite  unable  to  excite  the 
emotion  which  he  desired. 

Advancing  by  the  road  from  Hinckley  to  Stapleton 
and  Market  Bosworth,  Richard  drew  out  his  forces  on 
Sutton  Heath.  His  enemy's  position  was  difficult  to 
force,  as  Redmore  Plain,  on  which  the  Lancastrian 
troops  were  drawn  out,  was  covered  on  the  left  and  rear 
by  a  brook  hard  to  cross,  and  on  the  right  by  Sutton 
Ambien  Wood  and  by  a  morass — an  arrangement  which 
evidently  made  it  necessary  for  Henry  to  conquer  or  die. 


20  The  Early  Tudors.  1485 

as  retreat  would  have  been  most  difficult.  Yet,  after  all, 
Richmond  made  the  common  mistake  of  inexperienced 
soldiers,  and  desired  his  men  to  advance  beyond  the 
morass,  thus  running  the  risk  of  seeing  them  driven  in 
and  the  whole  position  carried  by  the  enemy's  rush. 
Seeing  the  danger,  the  veteran  Earl  of  Oxford  first 
ordered  the  men  not  to  move  ten  feet  from  the  stand- 
ard; and  then,  when  he  had  got  them  well  in  hand, 
seized  the  right  moment  for  hurling  them  on  the  enemy, 
who  seemed  indisposed  to  advance  and  unlikely  to  make 
much  resistance.  At  this  moment  Lord  Stanley  deserted 
Richard,  and  with  him  the  Earl  of  Northumberland ; 
while  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Richard's  firm  supporter,  was 
slain,  and  his  son,  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  taken  prisoner. 
Few  events  in  English  history  are  better  known  than 
those  which  immediately  followed — Richard's  catching 
sight  of  his  rival  and  charging  him  desperately ;  his 
Plantagenet  prowess  in  the  fight ;  his  refusal  to  fly ;  the 
coming  up  of  Sir  W.  Stanley ;  Richard's  shouts  of 
'  Treason,'  'Treason,'  as  he  struck  right  and  left;  his  fall 
with  many  wounds ;  the  finding  by  Reginald  Bray  in  a 
thornbush  of  the  crown  which  Richard  had  worn  on  his 
helmet,  and  the  crowning  of  Henry  with  it  by  Lord 
Stanley.  The  battle  may  be  considered  typical  of  the 
period  at  which  it  occurred,  combining  as  it  did  the  use 
of  such  modern  weapons  as  cannon  (as  proved  by  the 
balls  from  time  to  time  dug  up  on  the  field)  with  a 
mediaeval  encounter,  almost  hand  to  hand,  between  the 
competitors  for  the  throne.  The  victor  followed  the  bad 
precedent  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  by  ordering  some  of 
his  prisoners  to  be  at  once  executed.  As,  however,  his 
vengeance  only  lighted  upon  Catesby,  the  minister  of 
Richard  III.,  and  two  of  his  agents,  he  was  considered 
to  have  been  strangely  merciful.     The  distribution  of  due 


1485  The  Coronation.  21 

honours  and  rewards  was  deferred,  with  some  exceptions, 
till  the  meeting  of  Parliament  in  November. 

It  was  necessary  at  once  to  settle  by  what  title  Henry 
should  claim  the  throne.  The  right  of  conquest  was  sug- 
gested, but  at  once  put  aside  from  an  instinc- 
tive sense  of  the  principle  (explained  by  a  titt^to  the 
great  authority  of  our  own  time  in  a  cele-  ''^'■°"«- 
brated  judgment)  that,  'when  a  country  is  conquered,  its 
inhabitants  retain  for  the  time  their  own  laws,  but  are 
under  the  power  of  the  Sovereign  to  alter  these 
laws  in  any  way  which  to  the  Sovereign  in  Coun- 
cil may  seem  proper.'  Men  were  as  clear  on  this 
point  in  1485  as  they  were  when  the  'conquest' 
theory  was  broached  in  1693  in  favour  of  King  William 
III.,  and  when  it  excited,  as  Lord  Macaulay  tells  us, 
a  complete  tempest  of  indignation  against  its  unlucky 
propounder.  There  was  another  resemblance  between 
the  two  periods ;  namely,  that  Henry  was  as  determined  as 
William  was  in  after  days  not  to  be  a  mere  King  Consort ; 
if  he  married  Elizabeth  of  York,  the  daughter  of  Edward 
IV.,  he  would  not  owe  his  title  to  her.  Accordingly  on 
August  22  he  assumed  the  crown  in  virtue  of  his  Lancas- 
trian descent,  without  making  the  least  mention  of 
Elizabeth;  and  in  order  to  guard  against  Yorkist  com- 
petition, he  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick, the  son  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  whom  Edward  IV. 
had  murdered.  This  unhappy  young  man  had  for  a  time 
been  treated  by  Richard  III.  as  his  heir,  but  then  put 
aside  in  favour  of  another  nephew,  John  de  la  Pole,  Earl 
of  Lincoln,  the  son  of  Richard's  sister  Elizabeth.  The 
chief  part  of  the  Warwick  property  was  dealt  with  in  a 
manner  characteristic  of  Henry.  He  ordered  its  restora- 
tion to  Anne,  Countess  of  Warwick,  the  widow  of  the 
"  Kingmaker,'  but  forced  this  aged  lady  at  once  to  execute 


22  The  Early  Tudors.  1485 

a  '  feoffment '  granting  to  the  King  and  his  heirs  all  that 
had  been  her  husband's  and  her  own.  This  property  in- 
cluded the  islands  of  Guernsey,  Jersey,  and  Sark,  the 
city  of  Worcester,  the  town  and  castle  of  Warwick,  and 
a  vast  number  of  manors  and  lordships  in  nineteen 
counties  of  England.  Only  a  moderate  pension  and  one 
manor  in  Warwickshire  were  left  to  her  who,  when  young, 
had  been  the  greatest  lady  in  England.  Nothing  was  re- 
served for  her  grand-daughter  Margaret,  who  afterwards 
married  Sir  Richard  Pole,  and  is  well  known  as  the 
Countess  of  Salisbury  executed  by  Henry  VIII.  in  1 541. 
On  September  28,  Henry  made  his  entry  into  London  ; 
'  in  a  close  chariot,'  says  Lord  Bacon,  '  in  order  to  strike 

reverence  into  the  people ' ;  a  theory  of 
Coronation        Henry's  motives  which  has  been  curiously 

amplified  by  a  German  historian  of  England, 
who  dilates  on  his  strange  conduct  in  thus  withdrawing 
himself,  popular  and  triumphant  as  he  was,  from  the 
homage  which  awaited  him  in  the  streets,  and  yet  resum- 
ing his  military  character  in  order  to  consecrate  his  stand- 
ards in  St.  Paul's.  The  truth  is,  however,  that  Bernard 
Andre,  the  historian  of  Henry,  really  spoke  of  him  as  en- 
tering London  'laetanter';  and  that  Lord  Bacon's  'close 
chariot,'  as  well  as  Pauli's  longer  paraphrase,  is  due  to  a 
misreading  of  this  word  into  '  latenter.'  Henry  imme- 
diately announced  his  intention  of  marrying  Elizabeth  ; 
she  was  sent  for  from  Sheriff's  Hutton,  and  placed  under 
her  mother's  protection  till  the  Coronation  was  over  and 
Henry's  first  Parliament  had  been  held.  He  thus 
guarded,  with  almost  superfluous  care,  against  the  chance 
of  being  thought  to  claim  the  crown  through  her.  There 
was  some  fear  that  the  prevalence  in  London  of  the 
'  sweating  sickness '  might  delay  the  inauguration  ;  but 
as  the  force  of  the  disease  abated  within  two  months,  it 


1485  The  Coronation.  23 

was  possible  to  perform  it  on  October  31  following.  The 
marriage  did  not  take  place  till  January  18  in  the  next 
year. 

Henry  was  sparing  of  new  creations  on  his  accession ; 
but  his  stepfather,  Lord  Stanley,  was  made  Earl  of  Derby, 
his  uncle  Jasper  Tudor  Duke  of  Bedford,  and      „ 

•'      '■  Restoration 

Sir  Edward  Courtenay  Earl  of  Devon.  On  of  persons 
the  other  hand  pecuniary  grants  v/ere  abun- 
dant in  the  first  months  of  the  reign.  As  a  matter  of 
course  the  chief  sufferers  in  Henry's  cause  were  reinstated 
in  their  property,  often  with  large  additions.  Such  were 
his  mother,  the  Lady  Margaret,  now  Countess  of  Derby ; 
Sir  Thomas  Stafford,  the  son  and  heir  of  the  late  Duke  of 
Buckingham ;  Catherine  Duchess  of  Bedford,  the  same 
Duke's  widow ;  and  Piers  Courtenay,  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
who,  like  his  brother  Sir  Edward,  had  been  with  Henry 
in  exile.  To  John,  Earl  of  Oxford,  whose  father  had 
lost  his  life  in  the  Lancastrian  struggle,  and  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  1473  by  the  seizure  of  St.  Michael's 
Mount,  was  given  the  office  of  Admiral  of  England, 
Ireland,  and  Aquitaine.  With  this  grant  were  joined 
many  others  ;  among  which  we  should  not  have  expected 
to  find  Lord  Oxford's  appointment  as  keeper  of  the  lions, 
lionesses,  and  leopards  in  the  Tower,  with  a  shilling  a 
day  for  himself,  and  sixpence  for  the  food  of  each 
animal.  It  may  here  be  remarked,  once  for  all,  that  in 
this  reign  money  was  about  twelve  times  its  present  value. 
Another  highly  interesting  restoration  at  this  time 
was  that  of  Henry,  Lord  Clifford — the  '  Shepherd  Lord  ' 
whom  Wordsworth  has  celebrated.  His  family  had 
been  attainted  in  1461,  and  he  himself  concealed  in  a 
shepherd's  hut  to  avoid  the  vengeance  of  the  Yorkists 
for  his  father's  murder  of  the  child-Earl  of  Rutland  at 
the  battle  of  Wakefield.     In  this   condition    he   passed 


24  The  Early  Tudors.  1485 

twenty-four  years,  working  at  shepherds'  tasks,  and 
learning  to  know  the  stars  by  watching  them  from  the 
Cumberland  fells.  Some  manuscripts  still  remain  in  the 
possession  of  the  Clifford  family  which  prove  his  fond- 
ness for  alchemy — a  study  which,  though  prohibited 
under  pain  of  felony  by  a  statute  of  Henry  IV.,  had 
flourished  in  the  very  court  of  Henry  VI.,  and  was 
destined,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  long 
to  retain  its  hold  on  English  belief.  He  was  also  given 
to  astrology,  which  was  then  held  to  be  the  great 
practical  use  of  star-knowledge.  Lord  Clifford  lived 
till  the  tenth  year  of  Henry  VIII.,  and,  in  spite  of 
the  '  tranquil  soul '  which  the  poet  ascribes  to  him, 
distinguished  himself  highly  at  the  battle  of  Flodden. 

At  the  same  time  an  immense  number  of  minor 
offices,  such  as  the  wardenships  of  royal  parks  and 
castles,  were  transferred  from  the  supporters  of  Richard 
to  those  of  Henry.  Few  comparatively  were  bestowed 
on  Welshmen,  though  Sir  Rhys  ap  Thomas,  to  whom 
Henry  owed  so  much,  was  made  Constable  of  Brecknock, 
Chamberlain  of  South  Wales,  and  a  Commissioner  of 
Mines.  Welshmen  were,  however,  freely  admitted  to 
the  small  body  of  guards  which  Henry  now  formed, 
in  imitation  probably  of  Louis  XL's  Scottish  Archers. 
Following  the  same  King's  example,  Henry  at  once  showed 
himself  favourable  to  trade.  Some  London  merchants 
claimed  that  by  old  custom  they  were  to  pay  no  tunnage 
between  the  day  of  a  new  king's  accession  and  that  on 
which  his  first  Parliament  met  (this  indulgence  being 
considered  as  counterbalancing  the  extra  expense  which 
they  incurred  in  guarding  their  property  at  such  times), 
and  their  claim  was  allowed.  Several  Venetian  traders 
who  wished  to  come  to  England  received  a  special  safe- 


1485  The  Coronation.  25 

conduct ;    and  some  other  Italians  were  relieved   from 
penalties  incurred  under  a  statute  of  Richard  III. 

The  '  sweating  sickness,'  above  alluded  to,  which  broke 
out  among  us  for  the  first  time  in  1485,  was  one  of  the  most 
alarming  of  mediaeval  epidemics ;  and  it  re- 
curred so  often  in  these  reigns  as  to  deserve  pes^tilence 
a  brief  description  here.  According  to  Dr. 
Hecker  of  Berlin,  who  has  collected  all  existing  notices  of 
it,  it  was  a  violent  inflammatory  fever,  prostrating  the  bodily 
powers  as  with  a  blow,  and  suffusing  the  whole  body 
with  a  fetid  perspiration.  The  internal  heat  which  the 
patient  suffered  was  intolerable,  yet  every  refrigerant 
was  certain  death,  and  the  crisis  was  almost  always  over 
in  twenty-four  hours.  Shortly  after  the  royal  entry  on 
September  28  it  began  its  ravages  in  the  City,  two  Lord 
Mayors  and  many  aldermen  dying  in  a  week.  From 
thence  it  ranged  through  the  greater  part  of  England, 
stopping  short,  however,  at  the  Scottish  Border,  and  not 
spreading  to  Ireland,  in  spite  of  the  constant  maritime 
intercourse  with  that  country.  It  mostly  attacked  persons 
in  the  prime  of  health  and  strength,  and  not  those  who 
were  weak  from  age,  sex,  or  disease  ;  and  this  appears 
to  disprove  the  opinion  that  it  was  caused  by  the  presence 
of  Henry's  army  in  London,  and  was  a  consequence 
of  the  privations  which  they  had  suffered  on  shipboard 
and  on  their  march.  The  disease  gained  fresh  terror 
from  the  impotence  of  medicine  to  grapple  with  it.  So 
complete  was  this,  that  the  distinguished  Linacre,  who 
afterwards  founded  the  College  of  Physicians,  is  not 
known  to  have  written  on  the  subject.  Strange  to  say, 
this  failure  of  the  profession  of  medicine  probably  led 
to  its  quicker  cessation  ;  for,  as  there  was  no  scientific 
guidance,  the  people  treated  those  attacked  by  the  light 
of  nature,  making  them  go  quietly  to  bed  and  stay  there 


26  The  Early  Tudors.  1485 

till  better,  taking  no  food  and  only  the  mildest  beverages. 
In  subsequent  years  when  the  disease  returned,  and 
medical  practice,  as  then  understood,  had  risen  to  the 
occasion,  the  very  opposite  treatment  to  this  was  adopted 
in  some  countries.  In  the  Netherlands,  for  instance, 
the  patient  was  loaded  with  the  hottest  garments,  and 
crushed,  sometimes  to  actual  suffocation,  under  a  mass 
of  featherbeds  kept  down  by  the  weight  of  several  men 
lying  at  the  top.  There  is  no  trace  of  such  violent  reme- 
dies being  ever  used  in  England  ;  on  the  present  occasion 
the  methods  of  common  sense  were  blessed  in  their  results, 
for  the  disease  went  on  diminishing  through  the  autumn, 
and  was  at  length  brought  to  an  end  most  sudden  and 
complete  by  the  violent  storm  of  New  Year's  Day,  i486. 

It  is  always  interesting  to  observe  the  moral  conduct 
of  a  people  during  a  time  of  terrible  pestilence.     In  the 
present  instance  we  may  remark  that  when 
feeling  hardly  one  person  recovered  out  of  a  hundred 

""  *'^"'  attacked,  and  when,  moreover,  the  disease 

followed  Englishmen  abroad  and  spared  foreigners  resi- 
dent among  us,  it  did  not  rouse  either  the  national  hatreds 
or  the  superstitious  terrors  which  might  have  been  ex- 
pected. We  hear  of  nothing  like  the  execution  at  Meissen 
in  1507  of  'bose  Buben  '  suspected  of  having  poisoned 
the  wells ;  and  the  theological  strife  had  not  yet  arisen 
which  induced  the  citizens  of  Cologne  in  151710  burn 
heretics  in  the  hope  of  averting  a  fresh  eruption  of  the 
same  plague.  Nor  can  it  be  said  of  England  at  this  time 
(as  Mr.  Burton  quotes  of  Scotland  in  1569),  that  'in  time 
of  plague  selfishness  ruled  the  day,  every  one  being  so 
detestable  to  others,  and  especially  the  poor  to  the  rich, 
as  if  they  were  not  equal  with  them  touching  their  crea- 
tion ;  but  rather  without  soul  or  spirit,  as  beasts  degener- 
ated from  mankind.'     No  cases  are  recorded  like  those 


1485  Lambert  SimneL  27 

during  the  '  Black  Death,'  of  near  kinsmen  forsaking  one 
another;  nor  were  there  any  such  fierce  outbreaks  of 
fanaticism  as  those  of  the  Flagellants,  which  soon  after 
this  maddened  Germany  and  Hungary.  Superstition  of 
many  kinds  was  indeed  rife  in  England  in  1485 ;  but 
its  types  were  at  any  rate  somewhat  gentler  and  more 
humane  than  those  of  other  countries. 


CHAPTER  III. 


LAMBERT  SIMNEL.      THE  BRETAGNE  WAR. 
I486-1492. 

On  November  7,  1485,  Henry  VII.  held  his  first  Parlia- 
ment, thus  seeming  to  fulfil  the  general  expectation  that 
as  a  Lancastrian  sovereign  he  would  follow 
the  example  of  Henry  IV.  and  Henry  V.  in  o^ig^s™*"^ 
taking  kindly  to  constitutional  government. 
His  House  of  Lords  contained  only  twenty-seven  lay 
peers — a  fact  which  has  been  supposed  to  prove  how  many 
families  had  become  extinct  during  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
In  reality,  however,  only  two  had  thus  failed  for  want  of 
heirs  ;  and  the  number  of  peers  in  this  Parliament  was  so 
small  because  no  summonses  had  been  sent  to  twenty- 
five  who  were  likely  to  be  malcontent.  Henry  wished 
in  the  first  place  to  have  the  succession  settled  upon 
his  own  heirs  by  whatever  wife  ;  this  was  done,  and,  at 
his  strongly  expressed  desire,  confirmed  by  a  Papal  Bull. 
He  also  wanted  the  attainders  of  his  supporters  to  be 
formally  reversed,  and  not  merely  cancelled  by  his  act 
in  employing  them,  as  he  had  done  in  several  cases. 
He  intended  to  issue  a  general  pardon  of  his  enemies 
with    some    exceptions ;   yet  was  unwilling    that  Parlia- 


28  77/,?  Early  Tiidors.  1485-6 

ment  should  enact  this,  choosing  rather  to  deal  with  indi- 
viduals, wlio  might  be  made  to  pay  dearly  for  it,  and  thus 
the  better  enable  him  to  do  for  the  present  without  any 
parliamentary  revenue  beyond  the  tunnage  and  pound- 
age which  was  granted  to  him  for  life.  For  the  same 
purpose  he  declared  invalid  all  alienations  of  property 
from  the  Crown  made  since  1454.  He  kept  also  a  keen 
eye  on  the  fines  imposed  upon  foreign  merchants  for 
'  non-employment ;  '  that  is,  for  attempting  to  dispose  of 
their  wares  in  England  without  buying  a  return  cargo 
there.  As  if  '  born  to  the  manner '  of  English  royalty,  he 
picked  out  for  his  ministers  two  of  the  ablest  churchmen 
of  the  time,  Morton,  Bishop  of  Ely,  his  old  and  tried 
supporter,  and  Fox,  Bishop  of  Exeter.  The  services  of 
men  like  these  on  his  Council  would  be  invaluable,  yet 
would  cost  him  nothing,  seeing  that  they  might  be  paid 
by  translation  to  richer  bishoprics.  After  giving  indemnity 
to  all  the  King's  partisans  for  any  injury  done  to  the 
opposite  party,  and  enacting  that  Gascon  wines  should 
only  be  brought  to  England  in  English,  Irish,  or  Welsh 
vessels,  the  Parliament  was  on  the  point  of  being  pro- 
rogued when  the  members  humbly  petitioned  Henry  to  be 
pleased  to  marry  Elizabeth.  With  this  request  he  com- 
plied, as  we  have  already  seen,  yet  her  coronation  was 
not  for  the  present  allowed. 

Considering  himself    now    fairly  established    on    the 

throne,  Henry  resolved  on  a  progress  to  the  North,  the 

great   home   of  the   Yorkist   party,  whence 

Rebellion  ^  ,  ,       ,  ,        , 

of  the  Richard  111.  had  recently  drawn  his  best  and 

most  faithful  troops.  On  the  way  thither  he 
kept  his  Easter  joyously  at  Lincoln,  but  was  rudely  dis- 
abused of  his  confidence  in  his  own  fortune  by  an  insur- 
rection raised  by  Lord  Lovel,  Sir  Humphrey  Stafford,  and 
Sir  Thomas  Stafford,  who  had  been  in  sanctuary  at  Col- 


i486  Lambert  Simnel.  29 

Chester  since  Bosworth  Field.  The  Staflfords  were  sons 
of  the  Humphrey  Stafiford  slain  by  Cade  in  1450 ;  and, 
like  Lord  Lovel,  had  fought  for  Richard  at  Bosworth. 
They  made  for  Worcester,  apparently  trusting  for  their 
safety  to  local  connexions  there.  These,  however,  failed 
them  entirely,  and  their  forces  dispersed  on  Henry's  first 
proclamation  of  pardon.  Lord  Lovel  fled  to  Lancashire 
and  then  to  Flanders,  and  the  Staffords  took  sanctuary  at 
Culham,  near  Abingdon,  but  were  removed  from  it  for 
trial  on  the  ground  that  the  place  had  not  sufficient  privi- 
leges as  a  sanctuary  to  shelter  traitors.  The  elder  brother 
was  then  executed,  the  younger  pardoned  as  having  acted 
under  his  influence. 

This  rebellion  had  little  or  no  connexion  with  the 
feeling  in  favour  of  the  House  of  York,  which  was  still 
very  strong  in  England,  and  attributable  to  n^-a^^^  of 
two  main  causes.  In  the  first  place,  the  Yorkist 
Lancastrians  (including  the  present  King)  '=^'"S- 
were  hated  by  the  violent  and  unreasoning  part  of  the 
community  for  having  lost,  under  Henry  VI.,  the  English 
provinces  in  France,  the  wars  occasioned  by  which  had 
been  such  perennial  sources  of  plunder  to  Englishmen 
serving  there  ;  and  the  White  Rose  was  therefore  popular 
as  more  or  less  representing  the  idea  of  empire  abroad. 
In  the  second  place,  traders  and  manufacturers  held  the 
same  opinion  on  different  grounds ;  for,  from  the  very 
accession  of  Edward  IV.,  the  head  of  the  House  of  York, 
much  had  been  done  for  them  by  the  numerous  com- 
mercial treaties  which  he  made  with  foreign  powers,  and 
by  his  personal  interest  in  trade ;  especially  had  the 
greater  strength  of  his  government  guaranteed  our  sea- 
coasts  and  trading  vessels  from  those  attacks  of  pirates 
which  remained  for  more  than  a  century  longer  the' 
invariable  mark  of  a  weak  or  careless  rule  in  England. 


30  The  Early  Tudor s.  i486 

We  can  therefore  readily  understand  the  strength  of 
Yorkist  feeling  in  London  and  in  the  North,  seeing  that 
so  large  a  part  of  English  trade  and  English  manu- 
factures belonged  to  these  districts.  In  Ireland  the 
same  sentiment  existed,  but  appears  to  have  sprung 
chiefly  and  characteristically  from  a  remembrance  of  the 
gentle  sway  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  as  Lord-Deputy 
there  in  1459;  when,  after  the  defeat  of  his  party  atBlore 
Heath,  he  crossed  the  Channel,  seized  the  government  of 
Ireland  in  defiance  of  Ormond  and  the  Lancastrians,  and 
proceeded  to  hold  a  Parliament  there  which  claimed  to 
be  independent  of  the  English  Parliament  and  courts  of 
law.  George  Duke  of  Clarence  had  also  been  loved  in 
Ireland  for  his  father's  sake,  and  had  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  courteous  behaviour  to  the  people  between 
the  years  1461  and  1470,  and  afterwards  from  1472  till 
his  death. 

To  arouse  and  stimulate  all  these  feelings  of  opposition 
to  Henry's  government  was  the  life-long  purpose  of  Mar- 
garet of  York,  the  sister  of  Edward  IV.,  who 
Battle  of  had  been  second  wife  to  Charles  the  Bold, 

Stoke.  -Qv^iQ  of  Burgundy.     After  the  death  of  her 

husband  in  his  war  with  the  Swiss  (1477),  this  princess 
had  seen  the  French  part  of  his  dominions  absorbed  by 
Louis  XL.,  and  the  Flemish  provinces  passing  by  the  mar- 
riage of  Mary  her  stepdaughter  into  the  hands  of  Maxi- 
mihan  of  Austria,  the  young  and  chivalrous  son  of  Fred- 
erick III.,  Emperor  of  Germany;  she  herself,  however, 
retained  so  much  independence  in  the  districts  which  had 
been  assigned  to  her  as  a  dowry  on  her  marriage,  that  it 
was  vain  to  appeal  to  the  Emperor  when  she  did  acts  hostile 
to  England.  The  marriage  of  her  niece  with  Henry  had 
by  no  means  conciliated  her;  she  rather  hated  Elizabeth 
as  a  deserter  from  the  White  Rose.     Her  ill-feeling  found 


1486-7  Lambert  Simnel.  31 

its  opportunity  in  i486,  when  Lambert  Simnel  was 
brought  forward  as  a  pretender  to  the  Enghsh  Crown. 
The  broad  facts  of  the  imposture  were  that  this  youth 
was  represented  as  being  really  the  Earl  of  Warwick 
whom  Henry  had  under  lock  and  key  in  the  Tower. 
When,  therefore,  we  find  that  his  cause  was  supported 
by  the  Earl  of  Lincoln,  Richard  III.'s  own  nephew,  who 
had  once  been  heir-presumptive  to  the  Crown,  it  seems 
plain  that  Lincoln's  hope  must  have  been  to  get  rid  of 
Henry  by  means  of  this  deception,  and  then  quietly  to 
put  the  puppet  aside  and  stand  up  for  his  own  right ; 
adopting,  in  fact,  the  plan  which  Buckingham  would  pro- 
bably have  pursued  towards  Henry  himself  if  the  rebellion 
of  1483  had  been  successful.  As  so  many  people  knew 
the  true  Lord  Warwick  by  sight,  and  as  Henry  took  care 
that  all  London  should  see  him  on  the  way  to  and  from 
St.  Paul's,  it  was  thought  best  that  Simnel  should  make 
his  first  appearance  in  Ireland.  There  he  found  men's 
minds  fully  prepared  for  a  Yorkist  insurrection.  Accord- 
ingly his  cause  was  taken  up  by  Lord  Kildare,  who  was 
then  ruling  Ireland  as  deputy  for  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
and  he  was  actually  crowned  at  Dublin  (May  24,  1487) 
as  Edward  VI.  without  a  sword  being  drawn.  At  this 
point  Margaret  struck  in  to  aid  him,  showing  herself 
as  courageous  as  her  husband,  but  with  a  feminine  craft 
which  was  all  her  own.  She  helped  a  skilful  commander 
named  Martin  Schwartz  to  equip  nineteen  vessels  carry- 
ing about  2,000  veteran  soldiers;  and  Simnel  sailed  for 
England  with  these  and  with  some  Irish  troops  com- 
manded by  Lord  Kildare,  besides  a  few  Englishmen 
under  Lord  Lincoln.  Landing  at  Fouldrey  in  Lancashire, 
he  made  first  for  York,  striving  hard  as  he  went  to  keep 
his  men  orderly  and  humane,  so  that  the  impression  of 
his  being  really  the  rightful  King  might  strengthen.  By  this 


32  The  Early  Tudors.  1487 

time,  however,  Henry,  after  making  a  pilgrimage  to  Wal- 
singham,  had  fixed  his  headquarters  at  Nottingham,  as 
Richard  III.  had  done  just  before  Bosworth;  both  Kings 
considering  this  place  well  situated  for  commanding  the 
various  roads  from  the  North  to  London.  He  had  also 
much  to  encourage  him ;  for,  popular  though  the  Yorkist 
cause  might  be,  most  Englishmen  disliked  the  thought  of 
having  a  king  imposed  upon  them  by  a  mob  of  Irishmen 
and  Flemings.  Accordingly  Lord  Lincoln  had  to  engage 
at  Stoke,  near  Newark  (June  16),  with  little  more  than 
the  force  which  he  brought  from  Ireland.  The  b&ttle 
was  obstinate,  there  being  little  thought  of  giving 
quarter  to  foreigners  or  Irish.  Lord  Lincoln  fell  with 
Martin  Schwartz  and  Lord  Lovel;  unless,  indeed,  the 
story  is  true  that  Lovel  was  concealed  for  several  years 
in  a  strong-room  at  Minster  Lovel,  in  Oxfordshire,  and  at 
last  died  there  fromWhe  negligence  of  a  servant  who  failed 
to  provide  him  with  food.  The  unhappy  Irish,  armed  as 
they  were  with  nothing  better  than  darts  and  knives,  were 
of  course  cut  in  pieces.  Content  with  the  death  of  his 
chief  enemies  in  battle,  Henry  pardoned  the  nobles  who 
had  assisted  in  the  Dublin  coronation,  on  their  pleading 
that  they  had  been  misled,  not  only  by  the  very  governor 
whom  the  King  had  placed  over  them,  but  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin  and  the  chief  part  of  the  clergy.  He 
even  spared  Simnel  himself,  making  him,  first  a  turnspit 
in  his  kitchen,  and  then,  by  way  of  promotion,  a  falconer. 
In  the  course  of  the  next  year  he,  with  not  a  little  quiet 
humour,  exhibited  the  pretender  dressed  in  his  livery  to 
the  Irish  nobles  who  were  visiting  London;  and  enjoyed 
immeasurably  the  uncourtly  execrations  into  which  they 
burst  at  the  sight. 

After  his   victory   Henry   thought   it  prudent  to  con- 
ciliate  Yorkist    feeling  by  allowing    the   coronation   of 


14S7  Lmnbert  Stmnel. 


33 


Queen  Elizabeth;  this  took  place  November  25,  1487. 
He  could  afford  to  comply  thus  far,  as  he  had  just  made 
a  Northern  progress  of  a  very  different  character  from 
the  one  which  he  had  designed  in  the  preced- 
ing year.  Hisobject  now  had  been  to  punish  ^"^"^  ^^' 
all  who  had  adhered  to  the  rebellion ;  and  when  we  hear 
that  for  this  purpose  he  proclaimed  martial  law,  it  is 
easy  to  judge  of  the  terror  which  his  presence  must  have 
caused,  in  spite  of  his  generally  preferring  fines  to  blood- 
shed. With  regard  to  such  proclamations,  it  is  satis- 
factory to  learn  from  the  highest  authority  that,  the 
rebellion  being  at  an  end,  they  were  quite  illegal ;  indeed 
an  Act  of  Indemnity  was  afterwards  required  to  protect 
from  penalties  those  who  had  used  force  under  them. 
Strangely  enough,  one  of  those  on  whom  the  King's 
hand  fell  heavily  was  his  wife's  mother,  who  on  the 
first  report  of  Simnel's  rebellion  was  imprisoned  for 
the  rest  of  her  life  in  a  nunnery  at  Bermondsey,  with 
little  allowance  for  her  support.  This  was  done  by 
authority  of  the  King  in  Council ;  the  reason  alleged, 
namely  that  she  had  placed  her  daughters  in  King 
Richard's  hands  instead  of  remaining  with  them  in 
sanctuary,  was  so  plainly  frivolous  that  the  object  in 
making  it  must  have  been  to  suggest  that  there  was  much 
more  behind.  Lord  Bacon  conjectures  that  she  may 
have  borne  a  part  in  teaching  Simnel  how  to  make 
people  think  him  a  prince,  from  a  notion  that  Henry 
was  unkind  to  her  daughter,  and  a  consequent  wish  that 
he  might  be  slain  or  deposed.  Yet  he  appears  to  have 
been,  on  the  whole,  an  affectionate  husband ;  although 
we  are  told  some  years  later  that  Margaret,  Henry's 
mother,  was  somewhat  tyrannical  to  her  daughter-in-law. 
On  this  view,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  situation 
was   strained ;  for  the    Lady    Margaret,    Lancastrian  to 


34  The  Early  Tudors.  1487 

the  backbone,  was  allowed  by  Henry  to  regulate  on  the 
most  critical  occasions  all  the  details  of  Elizabeth's 
household,  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  her  Yorkist  mother, 
who  must  surely  have  been  more  or  less  than  a  woman 
and  a  mother-in-law  if  she  could  have  calmly  endured 
such  exclusion.  Perhaps  we  need  go  no  further  to 
account  for  her  ruin. 

Henry's  second  Parliament  was  now  held  (November 
9,  1487).     It  established  for  the  first  time  the  Court  of 
Star  Chamber,  for  reasons  and  in  a  manner 
Bre^tLgn"*^  which  will  be  stated  in  another  chapter,  where 

also  its  statute  against  carrying  off  women 
will  be  described.  The  main  subject  which  it  had  to  deal 
with  was  the  critical  state  of  affairs  in  Bretagne.  Here 
Duke  Francis,  at  whose  court  Henry  had  long  lived, 
was  now  in  extreme  old  age,  and,  as  he  had  no  son, 
the  question  was  what  should  become  of  his  province 
when  he  died.  The  determined  resolution  of  Anne 
of  Beaujeu  to  bring  about  the  union  of  Bretagne  to 
France  by  a  marriage  between  Charles  VIII.  and  its 
heiress  Anne  was  creditable  to  her  patriotism ;  her 
personal  interest  was  all  the  other  way,  as  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  had  in  i486  promised  that,  if  she  an"anged  a 
marriage  between  their  daughter  and  Charles  VIII.,  they 
would  support  her  in  claiming  a  perpetual  regency  in 
France,  their  hope  being  that  she  would  maintain  between 
the  two  countries  the  peace  which  was  certain  to  come  to 
an  end  if  Charles  assumed  the  full  powers  of  the  French 
Crown.  England  was  still  more  strongly  against  the 
union  between  France  and  Bretagne ;  and  not  unnaturally 
so,  considering  the  great  danger  to  our  navigation  from 
the  long  line  of  coast  which  would  thus  come  into  French 
hands,  instead  of  being  hostile,  as  it  generally  had  been 
while  under  the  separate  governments.     Doubtless   our 


1487  The  Breiagtie  War.  35 

mariners  knew  well  the  fact,  remarked  in  our  own  time 
by  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  how  clearly  ships  going  along 
our  coast  may  be  detected  at  a  great  distance  by  the 
light  on  their  sails  from  the  southward  sun,  while  French 
ships  on  the  other  side  escape  notice  and  pursuit  from 
their  sails  being  in  shade.  Troubles  between  Bretagne 
and  France  began  even  in  Francis's  life-time  ;  for  the 
Duke  received  and  befriended  the  Duke  of  Orleans  (after- 
wards Louis  XII.),  who,  after  the  fashion  of  heirs-pre- 
sumptive, had  raised  against  the  Regent's  power  the  war 
of  the  '  Public  Good  '  already  alluded  to.  Accordingly 
in  the  preceding  September  an  embassy  had  been  sent  to 
England  by  the  French  Government  requesting  Henry 
to  remember  his  old  obligations  to  France,  and  either  to 
join  in  the  attack  on  Bretagne,  or  at  least  to  remain 
neutral  in  the  war.  The  ambassadors  reached  him  at 
Leicester,  and  were  almost  immediately  asked  whether 
it  was  true  that  Charles  VIIL  was  planning  a  marriage 
with  Anne.  They  professed  to  be  scandalised  at  the 
very  suggestion — it  was  well  known,  they  said,  that 
their  master  was  affianced  to  Margaret,  the  daughter  of 
Maximilian  King  of  the  Romans ;  indeed,  this  very 
young  lady  had  for  some  time  been  residing  in  Paris, 
and  receiving  a  French  education.  Besides  this  they 
declared  that  Charles  was  arranging  an  expedition  into 
Italy ;  his  views,  therefore,  were  in  a  direction  quite 
opposite  to  that  of  Bretagne.  The  ambassadors  might 
have  added  that  Maximilian  himself  was  the  only  person 
whom  Anne  would  at  the  time  hear  of  as  a  husband — as 
indeed  she  afterwards  married  him  by  proxy.  Henry 
replied  by  a  counter-embassy,  offering  his  mediation 
for  the  re-establishment  of  peace  between  Bretagne  and 
France.  Charles  VI 1 1,  declared  that  such  an  arrange- 
ment  was  just   what    he    most    ardently   desired ;    but 


36  The  Early  Tudor s.  1487 

would  it  not  be  well,  he  asked,  that  Urswick,  the  English 
ambassador,  should  go  to  Rennes  on  his  way  home, 
and  come  to  an  equally  clear  understanding  with  the 
Breton  Government  ?  This  could  not  well  be  refused, 
and  the  result  was  just  what  Charles  had  foreseen  :  the 
answer  to  Urswick  was  really  given,  not  by  Francis  II., 
but  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  whose  interest  was  entirely 
against  peace.  Louis  would  hear  of  no  terms  of 
accommodation ;  he  also  urged  most  strongly  that  the 
union  of  France  and  Burgundy  must  be  contrary  to 
English  interests.  On  this  Charles  asked  Henry  to 
continue  his  mediation  till  peace  was  brought  about,  but 
at  the  same  time  announced  his  own  intention  of  at  once 
going  on  with  the  warlike  operations.  He  therefore 
invaded  Bretagne  and  besieged  Nantes  (June  1487) ; 
and  at  this  time  a  few  English  volunteers  under  Lord 
Woodvile  went  over  to  help  the  Bretons — a  proceeding 
at  which  Henry  professed  himself  very  indignant. 

This  was  the  state  of  things  on  which  the  Parliament 
of  November  1487  had  to  decide.  They  were  asked 
pointblank  by  Archbishop  Morton  whether  or 
pdicy^here.  "°  *^^y  ^ould  advise  the  King  to  ally  himself 
with  Bretagne  against  France.  Morton  told 
them  that  an  honourable  foreign  war  would  be  better  for 
Henry  than  the  domestic  tumults  which  had  given  so 
much  trouble  of  late.  The  position  of  England  as  to  the 
Continent  had,  he  remarked,  been  much  altered  for  the 
worse  of  late  by  the  absorption  of  Burgundy  into  the 
dominions  of  France  and  Austria  :  were  they  to  allow 
Bretagne,  their  other  trusty  confederate,  to  be  constantly 
joined  with  France  against  them  ?  Besides,  such  a 
precedent  of  the  greater  being  allowed  to  swallow  up 
the  less  would  be  a  fatal  one  for  small  countries  like 
Scotland,  Portugal,  and  many  of  the  States  of  Germany. 


1488  The  Bretagne  War.  37 

These  arguments  seemed  conclusive  to  the  members, 
who  would  naturally  also  fear  the  loss  of  Breton 
trade  (as  we  then  obtained  from  thence  our  chief  supplies 
of  linen  and  canvas)  ;  and  a  subsidy  for  the  war  was 
unanimously  voted.  Henry  would  not,  however,  begin 
hostilities  without  another  embassy  ;  and  before  this  came 
to  an  end,  the  battle  of  St.  Aubin  had  been  fought, 
the  Duke  of  Orleans  taken  prisoner,  and  Lord  Woodvile 
slain  with  most  of  his  men  (July  28,  1488).  Somewhat 
confused  at  this  effect  of  his  long  delay,  Henry  at  once 
sent  over  Lord  Brook,  one  of  his  companions  in  exile, 
with  8,000  men.  Yet  this  commander  could  not  or  would 
not  bring  the  French  to  battle  ;  and  after  the  death  of 
Francis  II.,  which  occurred  September  9,  the  English, 
finding  that  no  one  claimed  them  as  allies,  simply  re- 
turned to  England,  five  months  after  their  departure  for 
France.  This  of  course  left  matters  for  the  present  in 
the  hands  of  the  French  Government ;  which  showed,  it 
must  be  admitted,  considerable  tact  in  the  management 
of  difficult  circumstances,  beginning  by  claiming  only 
Charles's  right  as  suzerain  to  break  the  marriage  of  Anne 
with  Maximihan,  as  being  contrary  to  the  interests  of 
France.  This  was  done  ;  and  the  unlucky  King  of  the 
Romans  had  both  to  lose  his  wife  and  to  take  back  the 
little  daughter  whom  he  had  hoped  to  make  Queen  of 
France.  He  had,  however,  gained  more  than  one  point 
by  these  transactions.  For  though  Bretagne  was  finally 
lost  to  him,  and  though  the  Duchess  Anne  became  the 
wife  of  Charles  VIII.  (December  I49i),yet  the  lady  never 
forgot  that  she  had  once  been  Queen  of  the  Romans,  and 
was  perpetually  plotting  in  favour  of  his  family  ;  indeed, 
on  one  occasion  she  attempted  to  marry  her  daughter  to 
Charles  of  Spain,  Maximilian's  grandson,  and  thus,  in 
defiance  of  the  Salique  law,  to  make  France  part  of  his 


38  The  Early  Tudors.  1489 

overgrown  dominions.  Besides  this  the  English,  before 
the  hope  of  Maximilian's  marrying  Anne  was  over,  had 
supported  him  vigorously  against  his  own  rebellious  sub- 
jects at  Bruges,  Ghent,  Ypres,  and  Sluys.  The  popular 
party  in  the  cities  had  invited  the  French  to  their  aid ; 
and,  under  pretence  that  the  safety  of  the  garrison  of 
Calais  was  threatened  by  their  revolt,  Henry  sent  about 
2,000  men,  under  Lords  Morley  and  Daubeny,  who  in- 
flicted a  heavy  blow  upon  the  French  besiegers  of  Nieuport. 
Thus  both  in  Bretagne  and  on  the  north-eastern  frontier 
of  France  there  had  been  fighting  between  the  English 
and  French,  while  at  the  same  time  Henry  and  Charles 
strongly  maintained  that  the  peace  between  the  countries 
was  unbroken. 

The  subsidy  for  the  war  granted  by  Henry's  third 
Parliament  in  1489  was  not  levied  without  great  difficulty 
^^     ,  in  the  North  of  England.     It  was   opposed 

Northern  ,     .  ,     ,  .  ^^ 

and  Scottish  most  Strenuously  m  Yorkshire  and  the  Bishop- 
ric of  Durham  ;  the  people  maintaining  that 
the  miseries  which  they  had  been  suffering  made  such  pay- 
ments impossible.  In  fact,  they  seem  to  have  been  just 
able  to  tolerate  a  Lancastrian  sovereign  if  he,  for  his 
part,  never  asked  them  for  money.  The  King  ordered 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland  to  enforce  the  collection ; 
but  on  the  first  attempt  he  was  murdered  by  the  recusants. 
On  this  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  who  had  been  lately  released 
from  the  Tower,  where  he  had  been  prisoner  since  the 
beginning  of  the  reign,  was  ordered  to  take  the  command 
against  them,  Henry  himself  leading  up  a  reserve  force 
in  case  of  disaster.  However,  the  rebels  were  put  down 
before  it  arrived ;  their  chief  leader,  Sir  John  Egremond, 
fled  to  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  while  the  plebeian  rioters 
were  hanged  in  considerable  numbers.  At  about  the 
same  time  with  these  events  Henry  heard  of  the  death  of 


1492  The  Bretagne  War.  39 

James  III.  of  Scotland,  whose  friendship  he  had  re- 
peatedly tried  to  win,  obtaining  from  him  in  1487  a  truce 
for  seven  years,  renewable  for  similar  periods.  James 
died  miserably  in  consequence  of  an  accident  which  threw 
him.  from  his  horse  and  left  him  stunned  and  defenceless 
(1488)  to  be  murdered  by  one  of  the  rebels  who  had  just 
defeated  his  troops  at  Sauchie. 

There  is  something  really  amusing  about  Henry's 
pomp  of  preparation  in  1492  for  a  war  with  France  to 
avenge  the  absorption  of  Bretagne  which  he 
had  failed  in  hindering.  The  warlike  spirit  wk^'ivance. 
of  England  had  been  strongly  stimulated  by  £^X°^ 
the  news  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella's  capture 
of  Granada  from  the  Moors,  which  arrived  in  the  spring 
of  that  year,  the  city  having  surrendered  on  the  2nd  of 
January.  This,  indeed,  was  an  event  of  which  it  would 
be  hard  to  exaggerate  the  importance.  For  the  Moham- 
medan power  had  till  then  appeared  irresistible  ;  and  the 
fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453  had  invested  the  Sultans 
with  a  thousand  claims,  as  representing  the  empire  of  Con- 
stantine,  which  might  at  any  moment  be  pressed  in  the 
most  alarming  manner.  In  i486,  Mohammed  II.  had 
made  his  famous  descent  upon  Otranto  ;  intending  to  use 
this  as  a  base  of  operations,  first  against  Rome  and  Italy, 
then  against  the  other  States  of  Europe — an  enterprise 
which  was  hindered  by  nothing  but  his  death  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  and  the  succession  of  the  unwarlike  Bajazet. 
The  tide  had  now  been  turned  by  Spanish  valour :  Islam 
had  lost  the  chief  outwork  of  its  power,  and  the  victory 
had  added  to  the  territories  of  Castile  and  Aragon  a 
country  of  brilliant  fertility  and  resource,  the  possession  of 
which  had  an  effect  in  consolidating  the  Spanish  monarchy 
superior  even  to  that  produced  in  France  by  the  annexa- 
tion of  Burgundy.     England  had  been  represented  at  the 


40  The  Early  Tudor s.  1492 

siege  of  Granada  only  by  one  gallant  volunteer,  Lord  Scales, 
who  had  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the  early  part 
of  the  war.  Nevertheless  the  event  was  celebrated  by  a 
service  of  triumph  held  in  St.  Paul's:  and  Archbishop 
Morton,  who  had  now  at  Henry's  express  request  been 
made  a  Cardinal,  congratulated  the  vast  assembly  on  the 
close  of  the  700  years  of  war  with  the  unbelievers  in  Spain, 
and  the  certainty  that  numberless  souls  would  now  be 
gained  to  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  Stirred  to  the  emu- 
lation of  such  prowess,  the  Parliament  allowed  Henry  (a 
former  Act  notwithstanding)  to  raise  a  benevolence  for 
the  French  war ;  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  Cardinal 
Morton  devised  his  celebrated  '  Fork,'  ordering  his  com- 
missioners to  press  hard  men  who  spent  much,  as  this 
proved  them  to  be  rich,  and  also  men  who  spent  little,  as 
it  was  plain  that  they  must  be  saving  largely.  Tourna- 
ments and  military  exercises  were  held  everywhere  to 
'  stir  the  blood '  of  the  people  ;  and  a  striking  success  in 
Flanders  excited  still  more  enthusiasm.  The  Duke  of 
Saxony,  pretending  a  wish  to  arbitrate  between  his 
ally  Maximilian  and  his  rebellious  subjects  at  Bruges, 
had  been  admitted  into  that  city  with  a  small  force. 
Instead,  however,  of  staying  there  and  communicating 
with  the  magistrates,  he  passed  out  unchecked  by  the 
gate  leading  to  Damm  and  Sluys,  and  seizing  the  former 
of  these  towns  cut  off  Bruges  from  the  sea,  access 
to  which  was  all  important  for  its  trade.  On  this  Henry 
allowed  his  troops  to  help  Maximilian  by  besieging 
Sluys,  which  commanded  the  embouchure  of  the  canal 
leading  to  Bruges.  This  he  was  the  more  inclined  to  do 
as  Ravestein,  the  leader  of  the  insurgents,  had  made 
Sluys  the  headquarters  of  a  vigorous  system  of  piracy. 
He  therefore  sent  Sir  E.  Poynings  with  a  considerable 
force,  which  assailed  the  castles  while  the  Duke  of  Saxony 


1492  The  Bretagne  War.  41 

besieged  the  town.  After  much  obstinate  fighting  the  place 
surrendered,  and  the  rebellion  against  Maximilian  was 
practically  at  an  end,  very  mainly  through  Enghsh  help. 
This,  however,  did  not  overcome  Henry's  reluctance  to 
plunge  farther  into  the  war.  True  he  had  assembled  a 
force  not  less  than  26,000  strong ;  but  the  question  of 
ways  and  means  constantly  weighed  on  his  mind.  Maxi- 
milian was  above  all  things  impecunious  ;  his  father,  the 
old  Emperor  Frederic  III. — '  I'homme  le  plus  chiche  qui 
fut  jamais,"  as  Philippe  de  Commines  calls  him — could  not 
be  reckoned  on  for  much  ;  subsidies  were  hard  to  wring 
from  the  people  at  home,  and  even  if  collected,  their 
value  was  trifling  compared  with  the  vast  expense  of  such 
a  war,  in  which  the  commonest  archer  would  be  paid 
at  least  sixpence  a  day  (a  sum,  as  we  have  seen,  equal 
to  six  shiUings  of  our  money).  Tidings  also  came  that 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon  had  just  made  a  treaty  with  France 
on  most  advantageous  terms,  receiving  back  Roussillon 
and  Perpignan,  which  his  father  had  pledged  to  France 
for  300,000  crowns.  Accordingly,  though  Henry  sailed  for 
Calais  (October  6),  leaving  orders  for  the  army  to  rendez- 
vous there,  and  even  began  the  siege  of  Boulogne  (as  an 
instalment  of  the  sovereignty  which  he  claimed  over  all 
France),  yet  he  was  not  insensible  to  the  advantage  of 
negotiating,  and  allowed  a  peace  to  be  concluded  at 
Etaples  (November  3),  receiving  under  the  name  of  ex- 
penses a  sum  of  127,000/.,  besides  a  pension  or  tribute  of 
6,000/.  a  year  to  make  good  what  he  had  spent  in  Bretagne. 
Thus  the  war  ended,  not  heroically  we  must  admit ;  yet 
how  much  better  would  it  have  been  for  England  if 
Henry's  successor  had  been  more  like  him  in  hating  use- 
less conquests.  The  present  King's  motives  were  doubt- 
less mixed  enough  ;  what  his  enemies  called  avarice  had 
much  to  do  with  his  conduct,  and  he  also  feared  war  in 


42  The  Early  Tudors.  1492 

general,  as  tending  to  raise  up  competitors  for  a  throne 
in  some  sense  gained  by  conquest.  Avarice,  however,  is 
hardly  a  fault  when  it  takes  the  form  of  sparing  the  people 
taxes ;  and  when  we  hear  of  so  many  sovereigns  plunging 
into  battle  in  order  that  their  title  may  not  be  canvassed, 
we  ought  surely  to  have  a  good  word  for  the  King  who 
thought  the  permanence  of  his  reign  best  secured  by 
peace.  Thus  much  at  least  must  be  admitted,  that  inspi- 
ration itself  would  hardly  have  guided  Henry  better  at 
this  juncture  than  did  his  own  mental  habits  and  ten- 
dencies. For  a  danger  was  soon  to  burst  upon  him  which 
required  his  very  fullest  attention  ;  well  for  him  that  it 
did  not  find  him  hampered  by  a  dangerous  foreign  con- 
flict in  which  success  was  unlikely,  and  almost  sure  to  be 
useless  even  if  attained. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


WARBECK.      BLACKHEATH   FIELD. 
I 492- I 496. 

As  early  as  1491,  a  youth  named  Warbeck  had  gone  to 
Ireland  in  the  service  of  a  Breton  merchant,  Pregent 
.    ,  Meno.  He  was  strikingly  handsome  and  well- 

AVarDGck 

widely  drcssed,  and  attracted  considerable  attention 

supported.  ^^  j^jg  arrival  at  Cork.  Gradually  a  report 
was  spread  that  he  was  really  a  Plantagenet ;  what  pre- 
cise member  of  that  illustrious  family  was  now  among 
them  was  a  point  on  which  authorities  disagreed.  He  was 
first  made  out  to  be  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  then  a  bastard 
of  Richard  III.;  but,  at  last,  all  Ireland  was  convinced 
that  he  was  no  other  than  the  Duke  of  York,  one  of  the 


1 493  Warbeck.  43 

two  youthful  prisoners  murdered  in  the  Tower.  Thus 
encouraged,  Warbeck  wrote  letters  to  the  Earls  of  Des- 
mond and  Kildare  to  enlist  them  in  his  cause.  He  made 
little  progress  for  a  time  in  gaining  powerful  adherents, 
and  had,  indeed,  as  yet  scarcely  been  heard  of  in  Eng- 
land ;  still,  his  Irish  sojourn  had  given  him  a  good  oppor- 
tunity for  studying  the  part  which  he  was  to  play.  When 
the  war  with  France  was  declared  in  1492,  the  French 
Government  thought  it  worth  while  to  invite  him  to 
Paris;  there  he  was  received  as  a  royal  prince,  and 
attended  by  a  guard  of  honour.  On  the  conclusion  of 
the  Peace  of  Etaples  he  was  not  surrendered  to  Henry, 
but  simply  ordered  to  leave  France ;  upon  which  Marga- 
ret of  Burgundy  received  him  with  enthusiasm  as  her 
nephew,  and  may  also  have  done  something  in  the  way 
of  prompting  him  for  his  part,  though  the  stories  of  her 
having  been  his  chief  instructress  are  inconsistent  with 
the  comparative  lateness  of  his  visit  to  her.  It  is  almost 
strange  that  Henry  allowed  the  affair  to  go  on  thus  long 
with  so  little  notice.  He  may  have  thought  even  Mar- 
garet's genius  hardly  equal  to  such  a  tour  de  force  as  the 
launching  of  another  counterfeit  prince,  only  six  years 
after  her  first  failure  in  this  line ;  and  certainly  did  not 
know  that  Warbeck  had  many  partisans  in  England,  and 
had  promised  Margaret  that,  in  the  event  of  success,  her 
long  unsettled  dowry  should  be  paid,  and  also  her  ex- 
penses for  him  and  for  the  earlier  Yorkist  rebellions. 
Accordingly  he  considered  it  enough  for  the  present  to 
send  Sir  Edward  Poynings  and  Dr.  Warham  on  an 
embassy  to  Flanders  (July  1493)  and  remonstrate  against 
the  countenance  given  to  the  pretender,  taking  at  the 
same  time  some  steps  towards  having  a  force  ready  in 
case  of  need.  The  ambassadors  received  only  an  evasive 
answer  from  the  Archduke  Philip's  Council.     '  It  was  im- 


44  The  Early  Tudors.  1493 

possible,'  they  said,  'to  interfere  with  the  Duchess  of 
Burgundy's  actions  within  the  districts  which  belonged  to 
her.'  The  only  method  now  at  Henry's  disposal,  short 
of  actual  war,  was  a  prohibition  of  trade  between  England 
and  Flanders  ;  so  all  Flemings  were  banished  from  Eng- 
land, and  the  mart  for  English  cloth  transferred  from 
Antwerp  to  Calais.  The  misfortune  was  that  this  prohibi- 
tion created  distress  in  England  as  well  as  in  Flanders, 
besides  exciting  a  furious  jealousy  in  London  against  the 
German  merchants  there,  who  were  less  affected  by  it. 
This  feeling  reached  such  a  pitch  that  the  Steelyard,  which 
was  the  London  centre  of  their  trade,  narrowly  escaped 
utter  destruction. 

Meanwhile  Henry,  as  a  worthy  pupil  of  Louis  XL,  was 
using  many  artful  means  for  tracking  out  the  conspiracy 
against  him.  He  directed  various  spies  to  pretend  loyalty 
to  Warbeck  and  his  party,  and  thus  to  ascertain  on  whose 
help  they  counted  in  England.  At  the  same  time  they 
were  to  take  every  opportunity  of  detaching  Englishmen 
abroad  from  the  rebellion.  It  is  said  that  he  took  par- 
ticular care  to  have  these  spies  cursed  at  St.  Paul's,  as 
if  they  were  really  his  enemies.  This,  however,  would 
happen  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  if  he  kept  secret 
their  real  intentions.  The  results  of  this  policy  soon 
appeared  in  the  arrest  of  Lord  Fitzwalter  and  some  other 
men  of  rank,  several  of  whom  were  beheaded.  But  the 
most  startling  revelation  still  remained ;  it  was  found  that 
Sir  W.  Stanley,  who  had  deserted  to  Henry  at  Bosworth 
Field,  had  now  joined  the  conspiracy  against  him.  Little 
is  known  about  the  degree  of  Sir  William's  guilt.  The 
indictment  against  him  only  specified  his  having  said  in 
conversation  with  the  informer  Clifford,  that  '  if  he  were 
sure  that  the  young  man  was  King  Edward's  son,  he 
would  not  bear  arms  against  him.'     The  judges  held  that 


1495  Warbeck.  45 

treason  could  not  escape  from  being  sheltered  under 
such  a  condition ;  and  Stanley  was  accordingly  executed 
(February  16,  1495).  It  appears  also  that  he  had  deeply 
offended  Henry  by  applying  for  the  Earldom  of  Chester, 
which  was  then,  as  it  still  is,  an  appanage  of  the  Crown 
and  annexed  to  the  title  of  Prince  of  Wales. 

Meantime  Maximilian  and  his  young  son  Philip  were 
in  rapture  at  the  splendid  chances  which  were  now  pre- 
senting themselves.  Warbeck  appears  to  have  given 
them  the  additional  promise,  either  to  abdicate  in  favour 
of  Philip,  or  to  hold  the  kingdom  in  subordination  to 
him;  it  seemed  quite  probable  that  Maximilian  would 
soon  be  able  to  hurl  all  the  forces  of  England  at  the 
King  of  France  whom  he  hated  so  entirely.  Henry  VII. 
therefore  became  suddenly  aware  that  England  was  to 
be  at  once  invaded,  and  that  Warbeck  was  held  to  be 
really  the  Duke  of  York,  not  only  by  those  who  had  been 
maintaining  him  for  two  years,  but  by  the  Pope,  by 
James  IV.  of  Scotland,  by  Charles  VIII.  of  France, 
by  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  by  the  King  of  Denmark,  and 
perhaps  also  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  To  a  man 
habitually  prudent  and  foreseeing  there  is  something 
unbearable  in  the  thought  of  having  allowed  danger 
to  accumulate  by  sheer  neglect ;  and  Henry  suffered  this 
misery  to  such  an  extent  that  he  became  in  a  few  days 
quite  like  an  old  man. 

'At  the  beginning  of  July  1495  Warbeck's  fleet,  or  rather 
Maximilian's,  was  off  the  coast  of  Kent.  Some  of  the 
troops  on  board  disembarked  near  Deal,  and  Warbeck  in 
were  at  once  set  upon  by  the  country  people.       Ireland  and 

,  ,  .  Scotland. 

No  attempt  was  made  to  rescue  the  prisoners, 
and  the  expedition  passed  on  ;  its  leaders  little  thinking 
that  the  acute  Ferdinand  would  at  once  divine  that  one 
who  acted  so   pusillanimously  could  not  be  a  genuine 


46  The  Early  Ttidors.  1496 

Plantagenet.  Warbeck  made  for  Ireland  and  began  the 
siege  of  Waterford,  which  had  been  ahvays  favoured  as 
the  original  landing-place  of  Henry  II.,  and  had  shown 
its  loyalty  eight  years  before  by  holding  out  against 
Simnel.  Its  inhabitants  now  resisted  the  attack  with  such 
spirit  for  eleven  days  that  the  pretender  found  it  necessary 
to  raise  the  siege ;  and  so  little  was  to  be  accomplished 
in  Ireland  that  he  now  resolved  to  try  his  fortune  with 
James  IV.,  who  had  promised  him  help  even  before 
his  departure  for  Flanders.  Accordingly  he  landed  in 
Scotland,  was  received  with  considerable  ceremony  by 
James  at  Stirhng  (November  26),  and  an  invasion  of 
England  was  planned,  for  which  Scotland  was  to  be 
compensated  by  33,000/.  and  the  cession  of  Berwick. 
Henry,  now  thoroughly  awakened  to  his  difficulties,  was 
attempting  the  same  arts  which  had  prospered  in  Flanders. 
He  was  in  constant  correspondence  with  John  Ramsay 
Lord  Both  we  11,  who  had  promised,  if  possible,  to  kid- 
nap the  '  feigned  boy '  and  despatch  him  to  England, 
and  also  to  intimidate  his  supporters.  Bothwell  traitor- 
ously pressed  upon  Henry  that  war  with  Scotland  was 
always  dear  to  Englishmen  ;  that  James's  government 
was  most  unpopular ;  that  it  would  be  easy  to  send  a 
fleet  and  destroy  all  the  shipping  of  the  country  ;  and 
that  Edinburgh  Castle  itself  was  only  half  armed.  How- 
ever, before  Henry  was  prepared  for  such  enterprises, 
the  Scottish  raid  into  England  took  place  (September  17), 
and  was  carried  out  with  a  cruelty  which  shocked 
Warbeck  himself;  indeed  he  expressed  his  gnef  at  it  in 
a  way  which  his  allies  considered  as  '  unprincely  '  as  his 
cowardice  at  Deal  had  been.  As  the  invaders  numbered 
only  1,400,  nothing  was  really  effected  ;  the  only  reliable 
hope  had  been  that  Warbeck  would  find  support  beyond 
the  Border,  none  of  which  appeared  during  the  four  days 


1497  Blackheath  Field.  47 

which  the  invaders  spent  in  England.  By  this  time  both 
Charles  VIII.  and  Ferdinand  had  bethought  themselves 
how  important  it  was  to  compete  for  Henry's  friendship  ; 
and  each  was  declaring  that  he  alone  could  supply  un- 
doubted evidence  of  Warbeck's  real  birth.  Henry,  not  ill 
pleased  at  finding  his  alliance  thus  valued,  and  his  dan- 
ger from  Warbeck  getting  less  every  day,  nevertheless 
used  the  rebellion  as  an  excuse  for  remaining  neutral  in 
the  Franco-Austrian  quarrel ;  '  how,'  he  asked  Ferdinand 
and  Maximilian,  '  could  he  possibly  declare  against 
France  while  such  a  home-danger  was  close  upon  him  ? ' 
Whether  any  of  the  new  evidence  was  now  communicated 
to  James  is  uncertain  ;  at  any  rate,  Warbeck  was  ordered 
to  leave  Scotland  and  advised  to  land  somewhere  on  the 
English  coast  in  the  hope  of  gaining  support  there. 
That  the  recommendation  was  serious  we  may  judge 
from  the  fact  that  when  he  embarked  at  Ayr  (July  1497), 
it  was  in  company  with  the  celebrated  Scottish  mariners 
Andrew  and  Robert  Barton,  of  whom  we  shall  hear 
more  in  the  next  reign.  Instead,  however,  of  at  once 
carrying  out  James's  plan,  he  went  for  the  third  and  last 
time  to  Ireland ;  but,  finding  that  the  Deputy,  Lord 
Kildare,  would  now  oppose  him  vigorously,  he  thought 
it  better  to  try  his  fortune  in  Cornwall,  where  a  rebellion 
had  been  repressed  only  three  months  before,  and  might 
perhaps  be  renewed  by  his  presence. 

This    Cornish    dissatisfaction    had    originally   sprung 
out  of  the   old  grievance  of  subsidies.     That  a  trifling 
Scottish  invasion    should  be  held  to  justify 
such  exactions  all  over  England  appeared      RXuion. 
intolerable  to  a  sturdy  race  of  miners  who      F.'eTd!''"'^ 
would  have  thought  litde  of  resisting  a  few 
hundred  foreigners,  if  any  such  had  landed  in  their  coun- 
ties.    Being  informed  by  Thomas  Flammock,  a  Bodmin 


48  The  Early  Tudor s.  1497 

attorney,  that  taxes  were  illegal  for  such  a  purpose,  they 
actually  resolved  to  march  to  London  in  arms  in  order  to 
petition  against  the  impost,  and  to  call  for  the  punishment  of 
those  who  advised  it — that  is,  of  Cardinal  Morton  and  Sir 
Reginald  Bray.  In  Devonshire  their  conduct  was  peace- 
ful ;  but  on  entering  Somersetshire  near  Taunton,  they 
murdered  a  Commissioner  for  the  subsidy,  and  forced 
Lord  Audley  to  be  their  general.  Under  his  command 
they  marched  by  way  of  Salisbury  and  Winchester  into 
Kent,  where  they  hoped  to  find  a  population  hke-minded 
with  themselves,  doubtless  from  the  memories  of  Cade's 
rebellion.  In  this  they  had  no  success,  the  Kentish  men 
being  proud  rather  of  their  recent  resistance  to  Warbeck 
than  of  any  achievements  of  their  fathers.  Henry  also, 
fortunately  for  himself,  had  forces  in  hand  which  had 
been  prepared  for  the  Scottish  war ;  these  were  imme- 
diately ordered  to  advance  towards  Blackheath,  where  the 
rebels  were  now  encamped,  while  at  the  same  time  bodies 
of  horse  were  sent  to  their  rear  to  prevent  their  straggling 
in  that  direction.  Officers  were  also  detached  to  the  city 
of  London  to  organise  resistance  and  check  the  panic 
which  seemed  impending  there.  Confidence  having 
been  thus  restored,  the  commanders  spread  a  report  that 
they  intended  to  attack  the  rebels  on  Monday,  June  24  ; 
and,  having  thus  thrown  them  off  their  guard,  they 
ordered  their  outposts  at  the  bridge  over  the  Ravensbourne 
at  Deptford  to  be  driven  in  on  the  Saturday  afternoon. 
This  was  done  by  Lord  Daubeny ;  and  as  the  Cornish- 
men  had  arranged  no  supports  in  case  of  repulse,  he 
had  no  difficulty  in  making  his  way  up  Blackheath 
Hill,  and  charging  the  main  body  on  the  plain  above. 
His  victory  was  soon  complete,  2,000  rebels  being 
slain  and  the  other  14,000  completely  hemmed  in  by 
the  troops  in  their  rear.     It  is  remarkable  that  although 


1497  Warbeck.  49 

the  good  archery  of  Cornwall  had  cost  Henry  the  lives 
of  300  men  slain  on  the  field,  he  yet  contented  himself 
with  inflicting  capital  punishment  on  Lord  Audley,  Flam- 
mock,  and  a  third  leader,  the  Bodmin  blacksmith  Michael 
Joseph. 

Escaping  with  difficulty  from  some  Waterford  pursuers 
who  were  overhauling  his  vessels,  Warbeck  landed  at 
Whitsand  Bay ;  and  the  Cornishmen,  no  whit 
daunted  by  the  results  of  their  excursion  to  Devonshire 
the  metropolis,  joined  him  in  such  numbers 
that  he  was  able,  after  a  fashion,  to  besiege  Exeter.  Being 
driven  from  thence  by  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  he  led 
about  7,000  men  as  far  as  Taunton  ;  then  his  heart  failed 
him  so  miserably  that  he  deserted  his  wretched  followers 
and  made  for  the  sanctuary  of  Beaulieu  in  the  New 
Forest.  Being  taken  to  Exeter,  where  Henry  then  was, 
he  made  a  full  confession  of  his  imposture,  the  substance 
of  which  has  been  lately  confirmed  by  the  discovery  of  a 
letter  from  him  to  his  mother,  written  at  about  the  same 
time,  and  with  family  details  closely  corresponding  to 
those  in  the  confession.  Strange  to  say,  his  life  too  was 
spared,  even  after  he  had  made  one  attempt  at  escape  ; 
but,  being  afterwards  imprisoned  in  the  Tower,  he  was 
allowed  to  communicate  with  the  captive  Earl  of  Warwick, 
The  two  plotted  a  new  evasion,  and  were  then  both 
executed  :  '  the  winding-ivy  of  a  Plantagenet,'  as  Lord 
Bacon  says,  '  thus  killing  the  true  tree  itself.'  Mr. 
Gairdner,  from  an  appendix  to  whose  work  on  Richard 
HL  the  newer  details  here  given  upon  Warbeck  have  been 
taken,  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  pretender  was  spared 
only  that  he  might  entrap  Lord  Warwick.  If  Henry 
really  contrived  this,  he  must  have  been  a  graduate  in 
treachery  worthy  to  rank  beside  Louis  XL  and  Richard 
HL     Yet  it  is  hard  to  see  why  Warwick  could  not  have 

E 


50  The  Early  Ticdors.  1496 

been  destroyed  by  simpler  means  ;  and  we  should  in 
justice  remember  that  Henry  had  let  Simnel  live  without 
any  such  motive.  Indeed,  with  all  his  faults,  blood- 
thirstiness  seems  to  have  been  foreign  to  his  character,  at 
any  rate  when  he  felt  himself  safe  without  capital  punish- 
ments. There  was  a  quaint  kindliness,  too,  which  sounds 
sincere,  in  his  reply  to  his  Council's  condolence  on  his 
being  so  troubled  with  impostors.  'It  is,'  he  said,  'the 
vexation  of  God  himself  to  be  vexed  with  idols ;  therefore, 
let  not  this  trouble  any  of  my  friends.  For  myself,  I 
have  always  despised  them ;  and  am  only  grieved  that 
they  have  put  my  people  to  such  great  trouble  and 
misery.' 

Even  before  these  events  came  to  an  end  the  prohi- 
bition had  been  removed  against  commerce  with  Flanders. 
The  intermediate  difficulties  of  the  country 
tercursus  had  been  much  lightened  by  the  patriotic  con- 

Magnus.'  ^^^j.  ^^  ^j^g  ,  jyigj-chant  Adventurers  '  (a  cor- 

poration dating  from  the  fourteenth  century),  who  resolved 
to  buy  for  cash  goods  for  exportation  exactly  as  they 
would  have  done  if  there  had  been  trade  as  usual.  This, 
of  course,  locked  up  much  of  their  capital,  and  even 
hazarded  their  credit  with  foreign  countries.  It  was, 
therefore,  most  important  that  restrictions  should  cease ; 
and  this  was  finally  effected  (April  1496)  by  a  treaty 
called  by  the  Flemings  the  '  Intercursus  Magnus.'  It 
guaranteed  freedom  of  trade,  without  licenses  or  pass- 
ports, and  in  all  commodities,  between  England,  Ireland, 
and  Calais  on  the  one  hand,  and  Brabant,  Flanders, 
Hainault,  Holland,  and  Mecheln  on  the  other.  Each 
contracting  nation  was  to  be  allowed  to  possess  houses 
suitable  for  themselves  and  their  merchandise  in  the 
dominion  of  the  others  ;  and  while  the  traders  were  to 
pay  all  customary  dues,  they  were  also  to  be  reinstated  in 


1496  Charles  VI  11.  51 

all  their  former  privileges.  So  welcome  was  the  treaty 
to  both  parties,  that  the  English  merchants,  on  arriving 
at  Antwerp,  were  escorted  to  their  house  in  a  kind  of 
triumph  by  the  whole  population.  It  is  not  without 
regret  that  we  find  the  Merchant  Adventurers  so  far  pre- 
suming on  their  services  at  a  critical  time  as  to  make  in 

1497  a  determined  attempt  to  engross  to  themselves  the 
whole  foreign  trade  of  the  country,  and  to  prevent  all 
who  did  not  belong  to  their  corporation  from  resorting 
to  countries  abroad  without  its  license.  They  made  the 
matter  worse  by  claiming  the  license-money  for  a 
'  fraternity  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury' — an  intrusion 
of  religious  pretences  which  was  not  likely  to  com- 
mend their  view  to  the  general  community  ;  especially  as 
an  old  claim  of  y.  \d.  was  now  raised  to  no  less  than  5/., 
besides  further  demands  for  entrance  money  from  in- 
dividuals. Yet  most  of  this  outrageous  claim  was 
conceded  to  them  (though  with  a  proviso  that  6/.  1 35'.  \d. 
should  be  the  highest  sum  which  they  were  to  demand 
from  any  one  for  a  license  to  trade) ;  and  the  powers 
which  they  thus  acquired  remained  for  many  years  a 
source  of  ever-recurring  controversy. 


CHAPTER   V. 


ALLIANCES   AGAINST   FRANCE.      DEATH   OF   HENRY. 
1 497- 1 509. 

To  trace  Henry's  connexions  with  the  French  wars  in 

Italy,  and  his  reason  for  joining  the  Italian  league  against 

Charles  VIII.  in  1496,  it  is  necessary  to  go 

back  to  events  two  years  earlier.     Charles      vill.in 

had  carried  out  in  August  1494  the  attempt        ^^' 

on    Italy   of   which    his   ambassadors    had    spoken    in 


52  The  Early  Tudor s.  1496 

England,  not  heeding  either  the  dissuasions  of  his  wise 
sister,  or  the  dying  advice  of  Louis  XI.  to  give  France 
at  least  five  or  six  years  of  rest.  He  had  in  his  mind  a 
collection  of  the  strangest  and  most  confused  motives 
and  purposes  that  can  be  conceived.  The  strongest 
feeling  of  all  was  the  vanity  which  made  him  wish  to 
stand  forth  as  a  youthful  Csesar  or  Charlemagne,  at 
the  head  of  a  France  which  the  late  annexations  had 
made  stronger  than  it  had  been  for  centuries.  Besides 
this  he  had  a  fitful  belief  that  he  was  divinely  ordained 
to  break  the  power  of  the  Turks  ;  but  his  notions  of  the 
way  to  accomplish  this  were  as  indirect  as  those  of  his 
predecessor  St.  Louis,  who  landed  at  Tunis  in  order  to 
conquer  Jerusalem.  First  Naples  must  be  subdued, 
then  the  whole  of  Italy ;  after  this,  it  would  be  easy  to 
become  king  of  Greece  and  to  organise  the  whole  for  the 
conquest  of  the  Holy  City.  As  to  the  first  step,  he  might 
claim  Naples  as  being  a  titular  possession  of  Rene  of 
Anjou,  who  had  ceded  his  dominions  to  Louis  XI. ;  indeed 
Rene  had  been  nominally  king  of  Jerusalem  as  well, 
so  that  this  claim  too  had  been  conveyed  by  the  same 
cession.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  a  more  irrational 
mode  of  opposing  the  victorious  Turks  ;  for  Charles's  plans 
were  sure  to  shatter  rather  than  consolidate  the  means 
of  resistance  by  setting  one  Italian  State  against  another. 
Besides  this,  it  was  necessary,  before  he  started,  to 
bribe  other  princes  not  to  attack  his  own  dominions 
during  his  absence ;  and  for  this  purpose  he  surrendered, 
to  Maximilian,  Artois  and  Franche  Comte,  and  to  Ferdi- 
nand, Roussillon  and  the  Cerdagne.  Of  these  districts 
the  first  two  had  been  given  up  to  Louis  XL  in  1481, 
and  their  retrocession  now  laid  France  open  on  the 
north-east ;  the  latter  were  the  keys  of  Catalonia,  also 
pledged  to  Louis  in  exchange  for  his  support  at  a  critical 


1496  Charles  VllL  53 

juncture,  and  their  recovery  was  now  regarded  by  the 
Spaniards  as  hardly  less  important  than  the  conquest 
of  Granada.  Yet,  after  all,  Maximilian  was  not  concili- 
ated, for  he  knew  that  Charles  hoped  to  make  himself 
a  kind  of  Eastern  emperor,  and  therefore  his  rival ;  nor 
yet  Ferdinand,  who  was  sure  to  take  the  first  opportunity 
for  supporting  the  Aragonese  dynasty  of  Naples  which 
Charles  intended  to  dethrone.  In  Italy  itself  the  only 
ally  of  France  was  Ludovico  Sforza,  who  had  usurped 
Milan  from  his  nephew  Giovanni  Galeazzo  Visconti,  and 
in  order  to  retain  it  was  delighted  to  throw  all  Italy  into 
confusion  by  a  French  invasion. 

Only  the  briefest  summary  of  the  French  operations 
can  be  given  here.  Charles  at  once  alienated  Ludovico 
Sforza  by  supporting  his  nephew  in  a  fit  of  romantic 
generosity,  and  lost  the  hope  of  Florentine  friendship  by 
insisting  on  entering  the  city  as  a  conqueror,  and  on 
delivering  Pisa  from  its  supremacy ;  he  also  began  the 
bad  fashion  of  carrying  off  works  of  art  to  ornament  his 
own  capital.  In  the  States  of  the  Church  he  occupied 
the  fortresses,  and  drove  the  Pope  and  Cardinals  to  take 
refuge  in  the  Casde  of  St.  Angelo.  The  result  of  all 
these  follies  was  that,  although  the  extraordinary  un- 
popularity of  Alfonso  of  Aragon  made  the  conquest  of 
Naples  as  rapid  as  one  within  our  own  memory,  it  was 
utterly  impossible  to  hold  the  country.  For  a  league 
against  France  was  secretly  formed  by  Venice,  Ferdinand, 
Pope  Alexander  VI.,  Maximihan,  and  Sforza.  These 
powers  undertook  to  cut  Charles  off  from  France,  and  if 
possible  to  take  him  prisoner.  He,  however,  succeeded 
in  making  his  way  through  the  opposing  forces  at 
Fornovo,  near  Piacenza,  leaving  behind  him  9,000  men  to 
hold  his  conquests,  but  appearing  afterwards  to  forget 


54  The  Early  Tudor s.  1496 

all  about  these  unfortunate  troops,  who  perished  almost 
entirely  by  war  and  disease. 

The  manner  in  which  these  events  influenced  Henry's 

policy  was  curious  and  characteristic.     Of  course  it  was 

ordinarily  the  interest  of  an  English  sovereign 

Royal  J.Q  form  no  very  close  connexions  either  with 

marriages.  ^ 

The  Italian        France  or  Spain,  but  to  allow  these  powers  to 

League. 

weaken  themselves  and  each  other  by  per- 
petual strife,  so  that  neither  might  be  able  to  join  with  Scot- 
land in  attacking  him.  The  annexation  of  Bretagne  had, 
however,  caused  in  England  a  positive  hatred  of  France, 
while  the  fact  that  her  King  was  engaged  in  enterprises  so 
far  away  made  it  safe  to  side  with  Spain  against  him. 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  on  their  part  were  willing  to 
draw  towards  Henry,  in  order  to  use  him  as  an  ally  in 
the  rear  of  their  great  enemy.  In  fact,  the  Spanish 
sovereigns  had  for  some  time  been  looking  for  oppor- 
tunities of  conciliating  him ;  and  their  ambassador,  Don 
Pedro  de  Ayala,  had  been  most  influential  in  persuading 
James  of  Scotland  to  give  up  his  support  of  Warbeck, 
thus  freeing  Henry  from  the  great  danger  of  his  reign 
and  raising  the  value  of  his  friendship.  Two  marriages 
were  now  planned  with  the  object  of  uniting  both  Scotland 
and  Spain  with  England,  and  detaching  both  irrevocably 
from  the  French  alliance.  Henry's  eldest  son  Arthur  was 
to  be  the  husband  of  Katherine,  the  younger  daughter 
of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  his  daughter  Margaret 
was  to  become  Queen  of  Scotland.  The  consequences  of 
these  two  marriages  would  be  wide-reaching.  That  with 
Scotland  might  lead  to  the  union  of  the  two  countries  by 
the  succession  of  a  Scottish  prince  to  the  English  throne  ; 
if  this  happened,  Henry  acutely  remarked  that  Scotland 
would  still  be  only  an  accession  to  England,  and  not 


1496-7  The  Spanish  Marriage.  55 

England  to  Scotiand,  inasmuch  as  the  greater  would 
necessarily  draw  the  less.  That  with  Spain  would 
directly  cause  firmer  friendship  and  more  vigorous 
commercial  intercourse  with  the  Netherlands,  as  the 
Archduke  Philip,  Maximilian's  eldest  son,  had  married 
Juana,  Katherine's  elder  sister ;  and  this  again  would 
compel  the  Duchess  Margaret  of  Burgundy  to  desist 
from  any  further  Yorkist  enterprises  against  Henry. 
Yet,  with  all  these  motives  to  conclude  Arthur's  marriage 
at  once,  the  negotiations  for  it  went  on  slowly.  An 
agreement  was  formed  about  its  conditions  in  September 
1496;  on  August  15,  1497,  the  betrothal  took  place 
at  Woodstock,  but  the  marriage  itself  was  delayed  till 
November  1501.  The  same  kind  of  caution  showed 
itself  in  Henry's  adhesion  (September  1496)  to  the 
Italian  League.  He  accompanied  this  with  a  stipulation 
that  he  should  not,  like  the  other  members  of  the  con- 
federacy, be  called  upon  to  make  war  with  Charles. 
Ferdinand  was  willing  to  receive  him  into  the  League 
even  on  these  terms,  feeling  sure  that  circumstances 
would  soon  compel  him  to  take  a  more  decided  part. 
Meantime  the  King  of  Aragon  was  preparing,  as  late 
historical  discoveries  have  shown,  a  plan  for  overthrowing 
the  peculiar  liberties  of  the  Gallican  Church,  as  established 
by  Charles  VII.,  the  grandfather  of  the  present  King;  but 
for  these,  it  was  thought,  no  king  of  France  would  ever 
dare  to  wage  war  against  the  Pope  as  Charles  had  been 
doing,  or  to  show  himself  so  disobedient  to  his  spiritual 
authority.  That  the  marriage  of  Katherine  should  have 
been  thus  planned  with  the  decided  object  of  strengthen- 
ing the  Papacy  may  surely  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  most  striking  instances  on  record  of  the  irony 
of  fate.  As  having  this  object,  it  could  not  but  be 
religiously  dangerous   to    England   and  ominous  to  our 


56  The  Early  Tudors .     '  1 500 

liberties.  Lord  Bacon  remarks  that  prosecutions  for 
heresy  were  rare  under  Henry  VII.  ;  yet  they  were 
not  unknown,  for  Joan  Boughton,  Lady  Young,  and 
several  other  persons  had  been  burned  as  Wycliffites  in 
1494  and  the  following  years,  and  the  spirit  of  heresy 
was  abroad.  What  then  was  likely  to  be  the  effect  of 
so  close  an  alliance  with  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  who 
had  allowed  the  Inquisition  to  burn  500  persons  annually 
for  many  years  together  in  their  dominions  ?  Here  again, 
we  should  feel  some  gratitude  to  the  sovereign  who, 
whether  from  timidity  and  indecision,  or  from  something 
within  him  which  did  not  love  cruelty,  did  after  all  guard 
us  from  the  worst  risks  which  his  policy  was  likely  in 
itself  to  bring  on. 

The  proposal  of  a  Crusade  by  Alexander  VI.  in   1500, 
on  different  principles   from    those  pursued  by  Charles 

VIII.,  produced  a  fresh  indication  of  Henry's 
re?used*^  unwillingness  to  trust  the  Pope  too  far.  When 

asked  to  join  with  Hungary,  Poland,  Bohemia, 
Venice,  France,  and  Spain  in  a  combined  attack  against 
the  Turks,  he  replied  with  hardly  concealed  contempt 
that  no  prince  on  earth  should  be  more  forward  than  he 
to  join  in  so  holy  an  enterprise,  but  that  surely  the 
Mediterranean  powers,  being  so  much  nearer  than  he  was 
to  the  scene  of  action,  and  so  much  better  supplied  with 
ships  and  galleys,  ought  to  take  the  initiative  in  it.  Yet 
if  these  should  refuse,  rather  than  his  Holiness  should  go 
alone,  he  would  wait  upon  him  as  soon  as  he  could  be 
ready,  '  always  provided  that  he  might  first  see  all  differ- 
ences among  Christian  princes  fully  settled,  and  might 
have  some  good  Italian  ports  put  into  his  hands  for  the 
retreat  and  safeguard  of  his  men.*  That  the  envoy  should 
be  '  nothing  at  all  discontented '  with  this  answer  seems  to 
show  that  the  plan  was  not  intended  to  be  really  serious. 


1500- 1  The  Spanish  Marriage.  57 

At  the  time  of  Katherine's  betrothal,  when  she  was 
only  thirteen  years  old,  and  her  bridegroom  three  years 
younger,  the  question  had  been  raised  in 
Spain  whether  she  should  be  sent  to  England  Arthur  and 
for  education.  Opinions  varied  on  this  point, 
some  maintaining  that  Henry's  court  was  morally  by  no 
means  a  fit  place  for  the  training  of  a  young  lady,  others 
that,  as  she  would  have  to  go  there  at  last,  it  would  be 
better  that  she  should  have  as  little  remembrance  as 
possible  of  any  happier  home.  At  the  end  of  1 500  her 
journey  was  at  length  to  take  place  ;  and  hearing  that 
her  entrance  into  London  was  to  be  magnificent,  Isabella 
wrote  entreating  Henry  to  curtail  such  expenses,  and  give 
Katherine  more,  if  possible,  of  his  fatherly  affection  in 
lieu  of  them.  She  was  to  be  endowed  at  once  with  the 
third  part  of  the  principality  of  Wales,  of  the  dukedom  of 
Cornwall,  and  of  the  earldom  of  Chester  ;  and,  in  case  of 
her  becoming  queen,  she  was  to  be  '  as  richly  endowed  as 
any  former  queen  had  ever  been.'  In  exchange  for  this 
somewhat  hazy  promise,  she  signed  a  renunciation  of  her 
dowry  of  200,000  ducats ;  the  young  couple  were  married 
in  the  following  November,  and  sent  to  reside  at  Ludlow 
Castle,  from  which  the  poor  young  bridegroom  wrote  to 
his  father  after  a  week  or  two  that  he  had  never  con- 
ceived the  possibility  of  such  happiness  as  he  was  then 
enjoying.  His  occupations  also  seem  to  have  been  truly 
royal ;  much  of  the  town  of  Ludlow  had  been  destroyed 
in  the  civil  wars,  and  he  encouraged  its  restoration  by 
all  possible  means.  Besides  this,  he  devoted  himself,  with 
the  help  of  the  Welsh  members  of  his  Council,  to  the 
improvement  of  the  laws  by  which  the  Principality  was 
governed.  He  is  praised  too  for  the  peaceable  disposi- 
tion which  made  him  check  at  once  all  quarrels  among 


58  The  Early  Tudors.  1502 

the  members  of  his  household.  But  all  this  genial  pro- 
mise was  cut  short  by  a  misfortune  like  that  which  carried 
off  at  a  very  early  age  the  two  other  sons-in-law  of  the 
Catholic  sovereigns.  A  neglected  cold  settled  on  Arthur's 
lungs ;  and  he  expired  within  five  months  of  his  wedding- 
day.  Before  the  unhappy  Katherine  emerged  from  her 
retirement,  an  ambassador  came  from  Spain  with  a  public 
commission  to  bring  back  the  Princess,  at  the  same  time 
claiming  her  dowry  and  payment  of  the  income  guaran- 
teed to  her :  yet  so  important  did  Henry's  alliance 
appear  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  that  they  gave  their 
envoy  private  instructions  to  arrange,  if  possible,  that  the 
young  widow  should  marry  the  Duke  of  York  her  brother- 
in-law,  a  boy  five  years  younger  than  herself.  Of  course 
such  a  marriage  was  irregular,  and  would  require  a 
special  dispensation  from  the  Pope  ;  yet,  considering  the 
object  proposed  by  the  league  between  Ferdinand  and 
Henry,  it  seemed  not  impossible  that  such  a  point  might 
be  conceded,  especially  if,  as  reported,  Katherine  had  been 
Arthur's  wife  only  in  name.  Subject  to  the  chances  of 
papal  pliancy,  the  King  thought  it  well  to  allow  the  parties 
to  be  affianced  to  one  another ;  whether  the  marriage  actu- 
ally took  place  or  not  would  depend  on  future  combina- 
tions. Meantime,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  country 
house  at  Croydon  was  appointed  for  Katherine's  resi- 
dence ;  and  she  was  treated  well  or  ill  according  to  the 
ebbs  and  flows  of  Henry's  good  will  for  Spain,  holding,  as 
she  did,  a  kind  of  political  agency  for  the  interests  of  her 
native  country.  At  one  time  Henry  VII.  conceived  the 
outrageous  design  of  marrying  her  himself,  but  was  de- 
terred from  it  by  Isabella's  declaration  that  such  a  notion 
was  '  too  wicked  to  be  so  much  as  named  in  Christian 


1 502  Louis  XII.  59 

The  conclusive  reason  for  Ferdinand  and  Isabella's 
urgency  in  the  affair  of  their  daughter's  second  marriage 
must  be  looked  for  in  the  state  of  France,  where 
Charles  VIII.  had  been  succeeded,  in  April,  Katherine's 
1498,  by  his  cousin  Louis  of  Orleans,  whom  we  yardage. 
have  seen  revolting  against  him  in  Bretagne. 
The  new  King's  first  care  was  to  bribe  Pope  Alexander  VI. 
to  grant  a  divorce  from  his  unloved  wife  Jeanne  of  France, 
the  daughter  of  Louis  XL,  and  to  secure  Bretagne  to  the 
French  Crown  by  at  once  marrying  Anne,  the  late  King's 
widow.  Immediately  on  ascending  the  throne,  he  assumed 
the  titles  of  King  of  Naples  and  Duke  of  Milan,  the  former 
as  heir  to  Charles  VII I.,  the  latter  as  being  descended  from 
the  Visconti  of  Milan.  Before  the  year  of  his  accession 
ended  he  allied  himself  with  Venice  and  the  Pope,  over- 
ran the  Milanese,  dethroned  Ludovico  Sforza,  who  had 
been  restored  to  his  dukedom  after  Charles  VIII.'s  re- 
treat from  Italy,  and  imprisoned  him  in  the  terrible  castle 
of  Loches,  near  Tours.  He  then  made  with  Ferdinand 
the  strange  agreement  that  the  two  powers  should  divide 
Naples  between  them,  Apulia  and  Calabria  being  assigned 
to  Spain,  and  the  Terra  di  Lavoro  and  Abruzzo  to  France. 
For  this  purpose  the  French  invaded  the  country  in  July 
1 501,  took  Frederic  King  of  Naples  prisoner,  and  occu- 
pied the  provinces  assigned  to  them,  while  Gonzalo  de 
Cordova,  Ferdinand's  general,  reduced  Tarento  and  the 
southern  districts.  The  natural  consequences  of  this  pre- 
posterous contract  were  not  long  in  appearing ;  the  two 
Kings  differed  as  to  the  division  of  the  central  provinces, 
each  claiming  them  as  belonging  to  his  own  portion. 
This  quarrel  was  rising  to  a  height  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1502;  so  that  just  at  the  time  of  Arthur's  death  the 
Catholic  sovereigns  had  the  strongest  motives  to  hold  fast 
to  the  English  alliance.     Indeed  their  ardent  desire  for 


6o  The  Early  Tudors.  1506 

this  made  them,  as  it  would  appear,  overlook  many  of 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  Katharine's  re-marriage. 
Henry,  on  his  part,  was  not  without  scruples,  which  were 
strengthened  by  the  decided  opinion  expressed  by  War- 
ham,  Bishop-elect  of  London,  against  the  Pope's  power 
to  sanction  it.  However  Bishop  Fox  and  other  high 
authorities  were  of  the  contrary  opinion ;  indeed,  consid- 
ering what  the  Pope  had  already  done  in  the  way  of 
allowing  divorces,  Henry  might  think  it  hard  to  assign 
any  limits  to  his  power  in  this  direction.  At  any  rate,  the 
magnificent  victories  of  Gonzalo  de  Cordova  in  Naples 
soon  made  him  think  no  more  of  his  doubts ;  and  he  gave 
full  assent  to  the  future  marriage,  yet  by  a  refinement  of 
caution  made  his  son  execute  privately  a  formal  protest 
against  it. 

The  latter  days  of  Henry  were  once  more  embit- 
tered by  the  fear  of  a  Yorkist  insurrection.  The  Duke 
_,     .    ,  of  Suffolk  was  a  still  surviving?  brother  of 

The  Arch-  .  ° 

duke  Philip  Lord  Lincoln,  and  had  commanded  for  the 
ng  an  .  King  at  Blackheath  Field.  This  nobleman, 
having  committed  manslaughter  in  a  brawl,  was  forced 
by  Henry  to  appear  personally  in  court,  and  there  to  sue 
out  his  pardon.  Affronted  at  being  thus  treated  like 
a  common  person,  he  fled  to  his  aunt  the  Duchess  of 
Burgundy  in  Flanders.  Finding  little  encouragement 
there,  he  made  his  peace  with  Henry  and  returned  home. 
But  just  before  Prince  Arthur's  marriage,  for  which  he 
had  incurred  large  debts,  he  once  more  retreated  to 
Flanders,  in  the  hope  that  new  discontents  at  home  might 
afford  him  an  opportunity.  On  this  Henry  resorted  to 
his  former  arts.  Sir  Robert  Curzon  was  instructed  to  go 
over  to  Flanders,  pretend  to  join  Suffolk,  and  gain  in- 
formation as  to  his  confederates  at  home.  This  led  to 
the    arrest   of   the    King's   brother-in-law   the    Earl    of 


1 506  Philip  and  Juana.  61 

Devonshire  (husband  of  Elizabeth's  sister  Katherine), 
and  of  Lord  Abergavenny  ;  others  of  meaner  rank,  such 
as  Sir  James  Tirrel,  the  murderer  of  the  Princes  in  the 
Tower,  were  at  the  same  time  executed.  The  plans 
of  Suffolk  were  thus  deranged,  and  he  was  reduced  to 
live  in  hopeless  exile,  receiving,  however,  protection  in 
Flanders  from  the  Archduke  Philip,  who  by  the  death 
of  Isabella  was  now  King  of  Castile  in  right  of  Juana 
his  wife.  Suffolk  was,  however,  driven  from  this  refuge 
by  a  singular  accident.  In  January  1506  Philip  and 
Juana  were  on  the  way  to  Spain  in  order  to  take  posses- 
sion of  their  heritage.  Their  fleet  ran  down  the  English 
Channel,  firing  guns  by  way  of  bravado  when  they  were 
near  the  land ;  but  in  the  midst  of  this  amusement  they 
were  surprised  by  a  storm  which  shattered  and  dispersed 
their  vessels,  driving  the  sovereigns  themselves  into  the 
harbour  of  Melcombe.  No  accident  could  possibly  be 
more  delightful  to  Henry ;  for  he  thus  got  into  his  power 
the  prince  who  had  been  his  most  determined  adversary, 
launching  Warbeck's  expedition  against  him,  and  agreeing 
to  receive  the  Crown  of  England  in  the  event  of  its 
success.  He  eagerly  invited  Philip  and  Juana  to  visit 
him  at  Windsor  ;  where,  under  cover  of  an  honourable  re- 
ception, they  would  be  still  more  completely  in  his  power. 
Amid  a  thousand  courtesies,  he  still  held  firmly  to  one 
main  point ;  Suffolk  must  be  surrendered.  This  was  at  last 
agreed  to,  though  with  extreme  unwillingness ;  Henry  on 
his  part  promising  not  to  punish  him  for  his  rebellion,  and 
consenting  that  the  matter  should  be  so  arranged  that 
the  exile  might  seem  to  return  by  his  own  free  will.  At 
the  same  time  Philip  was  compelled  to  make  a  new 
commercial  treaty,  which  was  so  unpopular  among  his 
subjects  that  they  called  it  the  '  Intercursus  Malus  '  (by 
way  of  contrast  with  the  great  treaty  of  1496),  complaining 


62  The  Early  Tudors.  1506- 

that  it  sacrificed  their  interests  by  allowing  English  cloth 
to  be  sold  in  Flemish  towns  generally,  instead  of  only  at 
the  two  emporia  of  Bruges  and  Antwerp,  and  thus  taking 
out  of  their  hands  the  profits  of  local  trade  in  their  own 
country. 

Henry  was  now  a  widower  of  some  years'  standing ; 
the  fair  and  good  Queen  Elizabeth  having  died  in  1501. 
Anxious  at  the  thought  that  the  succession  to  the  throne 
now  depended  on  the  life  of  one  son,  he  began  to  think 
of  marrying  again.  He  was  not  too  old  to  hope  for  fresh 
offspring,  though  his  weak  constitution  gave  him  an  ap- 
pearance of  age.  Several  ladies  were  at  different  times 
proposed ;  and  he  has  been  deservedly  ridiculed  for  the 
catalogue  of  enquiries  which  he  directed  to  be  made 
about  the  personal  charms  of  some  of  them.  He  urgently 
pressed  for  a  portrait  of  the  widowed  Queen  of  Naples, 
Isabella's  niece ;  but  met  with  a  blank  refusal — the  lady 
would  not  allow  her  beauty  to  be  sent  about  on  approval. 
Maximilian's  daughter  Margaret,  after  being  first  Queen- 
elect  of  France,  then  wife  to  the  heir-apparent  of  Spain, 
then  Duchess  of  Savoy,  seemed  at  one  time  likely  to  end 
with  being  Queen  of  England.  Besides  this,  Henry  had 
been  more  than  suspected  of  ardently  admiring  Queen 
Juana  on  the  Windsor  visit,  when  the  evident  ill-health 
of  her  husband  gave  a  prospect  of  his  death,  which  hap- 
pened a  few  months  after.  All  these  schemes  having 
failed,  the  King  made  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  remained 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  unmarried. 

A  curious  attempt  was  made  in  1 508  to  procure  from 
Pope  Julius  II.  (who  had  succeeded  Alexander  VI.  in 
1503)  the  canonisation  of  King  Henry  VI.  Lord  Bacon 
hints  that  the  fees  payable  to  the  Roman  Court  on  such 
occasions  were  unreasonably  high,  amounting  as  they 
did  to  nearly  1,000  ducats.     He  inclines,  however,  to  the 


-1 509  Empsoi\  and  Dudley.  63 

view  that  Julius  was  too  sensible  so  to  honour  one  who 
was  '  little  better  than  a  natural.'  That  the  expense 
would  not  have  deterred  Henry  is  proved  by  his  having 
willingly  paid  similar  fees  for  the  canonisation  of  Anselm, 
which  took  place  at  this  time. 

As  there  were  no  regular  parliamentary  subsidies  in 
the  last  thirteen  years  of  Henry's  reign,  he  had  to  provide 
for  the  expenses  of  government  otherwise,  and 
did  so  by  means  which  have  stained  his  Dudley"^" 
memory  deeply.  He  made  money  out  of 
every  office  in  his  Court,  received  bribes  for  conferring 
bishoprics,  and  sold  pardons  to  those  concerned  in  the 
Cornish  rebellion,  the  sums  paid  varying  from  i/.  to  200/. 
But  far  the  most  discreditable  exactions  were  those  which 
are  connected  with  the  names  of  Richard  Empson  and 
Edmund  Dudley — the  former  a  Towcester  tradesman's 
son,  employed  by  Henry  in  imitation  of  Louis  XL's  love 
for  low-born  ministers ;  the  latter  the  founder,  at  least, 
of  a  great  family,  as  his  son  John  played  a  considerable 
part  in  English  history  under  his  successive  titles  of  Lisle, 
Warwick,  and  Northumberland.  These  men  enriched 
Henry  by  a  course  of  the  most  odious  chicane  directed 
against  wealthy  men  all  over  England.  We  hear  of  their 
prosecuting  Sir  WiUiam  Capel  for  being  remiss  in  en- 
quiring about  base  coin  when  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
and  fining  him  2,000/.  As  this  was  the  second  time  Sir 
William  had  been  thus  treated,  he  firmly  refused  to  pay, 
and  remained  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower  till  the  end  of  the 
reign.  Other  persons  were  indicted  of  crimes  before 
magistrates,  and  then  left  in  prison  untried,  in  defiance 
of  Magna  Charta,  till  they  consented  to  pay  fines  or 
ransoms  for  their  freedom.  Sometimes,  as  Lord  Bacon 
tells  us,  Empson  and  Dudley  even  dispensed  with  the 
help  of  magistrates,  and  committed  accused  persons  to 


64  The  Early  Tudors.  1509 

prison  by  their  own  authority,  the  pecuniary  object  in 
each  case  being  the  same.  They  got  enormous  sums  for 
restoration  in  cases  of  technical  outlawry,  and  even  tried 
to  establish  the  principle  that  such  a  composition  should 
never  be  less  than  half  a  man's  income  for  two  years 
after  the  outlawry  began.  Endless  vexations  were  also 
practised  at  times  when  new  heirs  were  succeeding  to 
landed  property,  by  maintaining  and  aggravating  every 
feudal  exaction  applicable  to  such  occasions.  Espe- 
cially was  this  the  case  with  royal  wards,  whose  lands 
were  given  up  to  them  only  after  paying  extravagant 
fines.  Empson  and  Dudley  had  also  agents  everywhere 
employed  in  the  detestable  task  of  hunting  out  defects 
in  the  title  of  landholders,  and  trying  to  revive  obsolete 
rights  of  the  Crown.  This  practice,  a  return  to  which 
had  in  after  years  so  much  to  do  with  the  ruin  of 
Charles  I.,  would  almost  certainly  have  overthrown  both 
Henry  himself  and  his  dynasty  if  it  had  been  carried  on 
long  ;  as  it  was,  his  feeling  of  his  approaching  end  made 
him  inclined  to  listen  to  remonstrances,  some  of  which  were 
urged,  as  we  are  glad  to  hear,  by  the  honourable  bold- 
ness of  the  Court  preachers.  Yet  the  abuses  were  not 
restrained  till  the  King  had  amassed  treasure  to  the  sur- 
prising amount  of  1,800,000/. ;  while  his  agents  had  laid 
up  for  themselves  a  store  of  public  hatred  which  only 
waited  for  their  master's  death  to  discharge  itself. 

Henry's  last  public  act  was  the  conclusion  of  a  project 
of  marriage  between  his  daughter  Mary  and  Charles 
Prince  of  Castile,  the  son  of  Phihp  and  Juana. 
Henr'^  VII  He  thus  hopcd  that  he  had  built  round  his 
kingdom  the  long  hoped-for  'wall  of  brass; ' 
since  he  was  to  have  for  his  son-in-law  the  King  of  Scot- 
land on  the  one  side  and  the  future  Lord  of  Spain  and 
Burgundy  on  the  other.     When  he  perceived  his  end 


1 509  Legislation  for  Ireland.  65 

approaching,  he  proclaimed  a  general  pardon  for  State 
offences,  and  also  showed  some  desire  that  unjust  acqui- 
sitions of  the  Crown  should  be  restored.  Soon  after  this 
he  died  calmly  at  Richmond  (April  22,  1509),  at  the  age 
of  only  fifty-two,  and  after  a  reign  of  twenty-three  years 
and  eight  months,  the  troubles  of  which  had  long  ago 
brought  on  him  infirmities  far  beyond  his  years. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


LEGISLATION   FOR   IRELAND.      ENGLISH    LAWS   OF 

HENRY   VII.      FOREIGN     TRADE.      MARITIME     DISCOVERY. 

I485-1509. 

The  administration  of  Ireland  in  this  reign  (as  indeed 
in  most  reigns)  stood  on  such  a  different  footing  from 
that  of  England,  that  it  is  well  to  speak  of  it 
separately ;  if,  indeed,  we  ought  not  rather  freland! 
to  say  that  all  administration  there  had  come 
to  an  end  since  the  days  when  the  popular  government 
of  Richard  Duke  of  York  had  drawn  away  so  much  of 
the  country's  strength  to  perish  in  the  battle  of  Wakefield. 
Of  course,  as  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  got  fiercer  and  fiercer, 
it  became  more  and  more  out  of  the  question  to  send 
either  men  or  money  there,  or  even  to  forbear  from  re- 
calling it^  English  colonists.  Thus  the  purely  Irish  fami- 
hes  recovered  much  of  their  lost  ground,  especially  in 
Ulster ;  in  the  South  and  West  the  few  remaining  Eng- 
lish were  content  to  assimilate  themselves  to  the  native 
Irish.  So  the  Geraldines,  as  Spenser  tells  us,  were  so 
enraged  at  the  death  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond  in  1467  that 
they  rose  in  arms  against  Edward  IV.  and  renounced  all 
obedience  to  the  Crown  of  England,  carrying  with  them 
the  greater  part  of  the  English  in  Munster ;  while  the 

F 


66  The  Early  Tudor s.  1485- 

Norman  families  of  Butler  and  De  Burgh  became  as  Irish 
as  the  O'Neils  or  O'Donnells,  living  according  to  Brehon 
law,  and  making  private  war  at  their  pleasure.  Many  of 
them  took  Irish  names,  adopted  the  Irish  language, 
dressed  in  Irish  fashion,  contracted  marriage  and  foster- 
age with  the  natives,  formed  their  retainers  into  bastard 
septs,  and  instead  of  regular  rents  and  services,  learned 
to  practise  the  irregular  exactions  called  by  the  English 
Coyne  and  Livery.  '  These  renegades  to  Irishry,'  says 
Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  '  seem  to  have  imbibed  even  the  pecu- 
harities  of  Irish  intellect ;  for  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  the 
head  of  the  Geraldines,  being  summoned  to  answer  for  an 
act  of  sacrilege  in  burning  down  the  Cathedral  of  Cashel, 
pleaded  in  his  defence  that  he  "thought  the  Archbishop 
was  in  it."  '  To  the  strange  attracdon  which  thus  acted 
upon  the  English  setders  must  be  ascribed  many  of  the 
sternest  and  most  repressive  Irish  laws  of  the  Plan- 
tagenets.  Thus  if  the  Statute  of  Kilkenny  (passed  under 
Lionel  Duke  of  Clarence  in  1367)  forbade  the  English  to 
let  the  Irish  graze  cattle  on  their  lands,  its  object  was  not 
so  much  to  hinder  Irishmen  from  prospering  as  to  keep 
Enghshmen  aloof  from  the  companionship  which  tempted 
them  so  strongly  to  forswear  their  country.  The  '  un- 
chartered freedom  '  of  Irish  life  carried  with  it  so  strange 
an  allurement  that  it  was  all  which  law  could  do  to  con- 
tend against  it. 

If  Ireland  had  any  preference  for  either  of  the  great  con- 
tending parties  in  England,  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  for 

the  Houseof  York;  and  from  this  cause  chiefly 
Laws'"^^'  sprang  the  change  of  Henry  VII. 's  mode  of 

governing  the  dependency  which  on  ascend- 
ing the  throne  he  had  found  all  but  severed  from  his 
dominions.  At  first  he  had  thought  it  best  to  employ  the 
native   nobility   for  this   purpose,  and   had   chosen   for 


-1 509  Legislation  for  Ireland.  67 

Deputy  the  Earl  of  Kildare — setting  him,  as  the  story- 
ran,  to  rule  all  Ireland,  because  all  Ireland  could  not 
rule  him.  When,  however,  he  had  time  to  reflect  on  the 
dangers  springing  from  the  Irish  support  of  Simnel  and 
Warbeck,  from  which  he  and  his  dynasty  had  escaped 
so  narrowly,  he  perceived  the  necessity  of  bringing  the 
country  under  a  more  regular  government.  Accordingly 
he  sent  over  in  1494  (at  the  time  when  Warbeck  was 
preparing  for  his  descent  on  England)  Sir  Edward 
Poynings  as  Lord  Deputy,  a  statesman  and  commander 
well  experienced  in  the  most  important  affairs  of  the 
time.  Poynings  soon  found  that  his  military  enterprises 
against  Warbeck's  wild  Irish  supporters  in  Ulster  were 
always  foiled  '  in  respect  of  the  mountains  and  fastnesses ' 
in  which  the  enemy  found  refuge  ;  on  this  he  accused 
his  predecessor  Lord  Kildare  of  correspondience  with 
the  rebels,  procured  his  attainder  by  the  Irish  Parliament, 
and  ordered  him  to  be  arrested  and  sent  to  England. 
Meanwhile  he  summoned  a  Parliament  at  Drogheda,  and 
there  carried,  among  other  Acts,  the  two  most  commonly 
associated  with  his  name.  By  the  first  of  these  it  was 
provided  that '  all  statutes  lately  made  in  England  should 
be  deemed  good  and  effectual  in  Ireland.'  It  had  been 
common,  as  Mr.  Hallam  remarks,  to  extend  to  Ireland 
the  operation  of  English  statutes,  even  when  that  country 
was  not  particularly  named,  if  the  judges  thought  that 
the  subject  was  sufficiently  general  to  require  it;  and  a 
majority  of  them  had  held  in  Richard  III.'s  reign  that 
borough  towns  in  Ireland  were  bound  by  statutes  made 
in  England.  From  the  date  of  Poynings'  Law  all  doubt 
was  held  to  be  cleared  away  as  regar4s  any  English 
statutes  passed  before  it  (though  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
the  expression  '  statutes  laiely  passed '  could  be  so  all- 
embracing)  ;    those   subsequent   to   that   date   were    not 


68  The  Early   Tudor s.  1485-- 

binding  on  the  people  of  Ireland,  unless  specially  named 
or  included  under  general  words  (such  as  '  all  his  Majesty's 
dominions  ').  It  may  be  well  here  to  remark  that  a  de- 
claratory Act  of  Parliament  was  passed  in  comparatively 
recent  times  (1719)  making  it  still  more  clear  that  the 
Crown,  with  the  consent  of  the  Lords  and  Commons  of 
Great  Britain  in  Parliament,  had  power  to  make  laws 
to  bind  the  people  of  Ireland.  It  was  the  repeal  of  this 
law  which  in  1782  led  to  that  independence  of  the  Irish 
Parliament  which  lasted  up  to  the  Union  of  1800. 

Still  more  important  was  the  provision,  in  another 
section  of  the  same  statute,  that  no  parliament  should  be 
held  in  Ireland  without  the  bills  intended  to  pass  at 
it  being  submitted  to  the  King  in  Council;  these  were 
then  to  be  returned  to  Ireland  under  the  Great  Seal,  and 
either  passed  or  rejected  as  seemed  good  to  the  Irish 
Parliament,  but  not  altered  or  amended.  Thus  the  Irish 
colonists,  in  spite  of  the  status  of  Ireland  as  a  separate 
kingdom,  were  debarred  from  the  privilege  of  independent 
legislation ;  yet  when  we  consider  how  small  a  portion 
of  the  population  of  Ireland  they  formed,  and  by  what 
oppressive  means  they  habitually  aimed  at  securing  the 
ascendency,  it  can  hardly  be  seriously  denied  that  some 
such  control  was  really  imperative.  This,  in  fact,  is  clear 
enough  from  other  parts  of  the  same  statute  which  were 
aimed  at  curbing  the  lawlessness  of  the  settlers.  In  case 
of  one  of  their  number  being  murdered,  they  were  forbid- 
den by  it  from  pillaging  or  exacting  a  fine  from  the  sept  of 
the  slayer,  though  this  had  been  expressly  allowed  by  the 
Dublin  Parliament  in  1475.  Noblemen  were  restrained 
from  private  war,  and  from  making  the  citizens  of  towns 
their  retainers  for  this  purpose  ;  and  '  coyne'  and  '  livery' 
were  again  forbidden  under  stronger  penalties. 

In   the   same    year   Henry   suppressed   the   so-called 


-1509  Legislation  for  Ireland.  69 

'  Fraternity  of  St.  George '  in  Ireland,  which  had  been 
estabhshed  to  meet  the  anarchy  caused  there  by  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  bore  some  resemblance  to  the 
Spanish  '  Hermandad  '  described  in  Chapter 
I.  It  consisted  of  thirteen  deputies  sent  up  by  I^Glorg^e"^ 
the  counties  of  Kildare,  Dublin,  Meath,  and 
Louth,  who  bound  themselves  to  maintain  a  small  and 
quickly  moving  force  of  120  archers  and  40  horsemen, 
always  ready  to  arrest  rebels  and  those  for  whose  appre- 
hension warrants  had  been  issued.  Every  year  on  St. 
George's  day  the  members  met  at  Dublin  and  elected  a 
captain  for  the  ensuing  year ;  to  defray  their  expenses,  the 
government  had  assigned  to  them  the  proceeds  of  a  tax 
of  one  shiUing  in  the  pound  on  merchandise  landed  at 
Dublin.  Doubtless  the  mode  in  which  such  a  body  acted 
would  have  too  much  of  the  appearance  of  private  war  to 
find  much  favour  in  Henry's  eyes.  After  the  recall  of 
Sir  Edward  Poynings,  the  country  was  governed  in  an 
irregular  way ;  sometimes  under  Lord  Kildare  (whose 
attainder  was  reversed  by  the  English  Parliament  in 
1495),  sometimes  under  English  governors,  one  of  whom 
was  Henry  Dean,  Bishop  of  Bangor,  and  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  whose  power  of  persuasion 
had  done  much  to  secure  the  passing  of  Poynings'  laws 
by  the  Irish  Parliament. 

The   mention    just  made  of    Henry's    legislation    in 
Ireland  may  properly  introduce  some  account  of  his  Eng- 
lish enactments,  which  are  most  important  and 
practical,  founded  as  they  are  mainly  on  the      Henry°vil 
admirable  principle  that  obedience  to  existing 
laws  and  a  general  feeling  of  responsibility  are  what  a 
good  government  should  chiefly  aim  at  securing.     In  fact, 
in  spite  of  the  many  faults  of  Henry's  administration.  Lord 
Bacon  seems  quite  justified  in  stating  that  in  legislation 


70  The  Early   Tit  dors.  H^S- 

he  deserves  a  place  among  our  early  kings  next  to  that  of 
Edward  I.  With  regard  to  the  power  of  the  Crown  he 
carried  two  highly  important  statutes.  The  first  is  that 
which  exempts  from  the  penalties  of  treason  all  who  do 
service  to  a  de  facto  king.  Lord  Bacon's  view  of  this 
law  is  that  it  was  'rather  just  than  legal,  rather  mag- 
nanimous than  provident,'  as  it  made  rebellion  easy  by 
securing  from  punishment  those  who  served  any  pre- 
tender to  the  Crown  who  might  be  strong  enough  to 
establish  his  power  for  a  time.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  would  make  rebels  begin  sooner  to  think  of  an  accom- 
modation, instead  of  fighting  on  as  men  do  whose  life  is 
certain  to  be  forfeited  in  case  of  defeat ;  and  was,  there- 
fore, so  far  in  favour  of  a  king  dejure.  And  when  we  think 
how  manifestly  just  it  was  that  the  same  law  which  made 
it  treason  (as  in  Sir  W.  Stanley's  case)  to  express  the 
slightest  and  most  hypothetical  doubt  as  to  the  title  of 
an  actual  sovereign  should  also  protect  those  who  upheld 
it,  we  may  be  inclined  to  recur  once  more  to  Burke's 
admirable  dictum,  that  in  political  matters  magnanimity 
is  always  the  truest  wisdom.  This  law,  passed  in  1496, 
was  in  a  manner  counterpoised  by  an  earlier  one  (1488) 
which  made  it  a  capital  crime  to  conspire  the  death  of 
any  of  the  King's  Council,  or  of  any  lord  of  the  realm. 
That  of  1496  did  not  protect  persons  serving  a  possible 
Republic  or  possible  Protector  of  England.  Had  it  done 
so,  Sir  Henry  Vane  could  not  have  been  executed  at  the 
Restoration  for  the  one  crime  of  having  been  an  energetic 
minister  under  the  Republic. 

Another  class  of  laws  was  aimed  at  the  repression  of 
acts  of  violence.  Thus  it  was  made  in  1488  a  capital 
crime  to  carry  off  heiresses  or  women  of  property  in  order 
to  marry  them  by  force ;  an  instance  had  occurred  in 
which  a  widow  named  Margaret  had  been  so  treated  by 


-1509  Henry  VII.' s  English  Laws.  71 

a  band  of  men  a  hundred  in  number,  who  had  been  pur- 
sued by  forty  others  '  modo  guerrino  armati '  (armed  in 
warlike  manner)  into  another  county,  and  there  overcome 
and  arrested.  In  the  same  year  it  was  ordained  that 
trials  for  murder  should  follow  while  the  memory  of  the 
deed  was  fresh  and  evidence  easily  attainable,  instead  of 
being  delayed,  as  they  often  were,  for  a  year  and  a  day, 
in  order  that  the  friends  of  the  deceased  might  have  a 
chance  of  first  proceeding  by  the  private  and  vindictive 
mode  of  action  called  '  Appeal  of  Murder,'  which  Lord 
Macaulay  has  described  in  its  application  to  the  case  of 
Spencer  Compton.  Another  Act  of  1488  allowed  justices 
to  determine  without  a  jury  all  offences  against  unrepealed 
statutes,  except  treason,  murder,  and  felony ;  it  was  on 
this  statute  that  Empson  and  Dudley  relied  in  trying  men 
privately  in  financial  cases. 

But  far  the  most  important  of  the  laws  passed  by  Henry 
in  favour  of  public  order  was  that  which  in  1488  estab- 
lished the  celebrated  Court  of  Star  Chamber. 
Its  preamble  states  that  '  the  King,  remem-  chamber, 
bering  how  by  unlawful  maintenances,  giv- 
ing of  liveries,  .  .  .  untrue  demeanings  of  sheriffs  in 
the  making  of  panels,  by  taking  of  money  by  juries,  and 
by  great  riots  and  unlawful  assemblies  the  policy  and 
good  order  of  this  realm  is  almost  subdued,  and  that  for 
punishing  these  inconveniences  little  or  nothing  may  be 
found  by  enquiry  '  (that  is  by  an  ordinary  trial  before  a 
jury),  '  ordains  that  the  Chancellor,  Treasurer,  and  Privy 
Seal,  with  a  Bishop  and  a  temporal  Lord  of  the  Council 
and  two  Judges  .  .  .  shall  have  authority  to  call  before 
them  offenders  and  witnesses,  and  to  examine  and  pun- 
ish them  according  to  statute.'  This  was  held  to  be  not  so 
much  a  novelty  as  a  parliamentary  recognition  of  an  an- 
cient authority  inherent  in  the  Privy  Council.     At  any 


72  The  Early   Tudors.  1485- 

rate  it  furnished  the  Crown  with  a  most  powerful  instru- 
ment for  checking  abuses,  and  was  soon  held  to  apply  to 
forgery,  fraud,  perjury,  contempt  of  court,  and  many 
other  crimes ;  nay,  even  occasionally  to  civil  causes. 
Hardly  a  term  passed  without  juries  being  fined  by  it  for 
acquitting  felons  or  murderers  contrary  to  the  evidence. 
Sir  John  Hussey,  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council,  was 
prosecuted  in  the  Star  Chamber  in  1492  by  Alice  Ford- 
man,  as  accessory  to  the  murder  of  her  husband  ;  noble- 
men were  indicted  before  it  for  sheltering  outlaws  or  for 
interfering  with  the  election  of  sheriffs,  and  justices  of  the 
peace  punished  for  neglecting  their  duties.  The  fines 
imposed  at  this  time  by  it,  though  mostly  less  ruinous 
than  those  of  after  days,  when  prosecutor  and  judges 
were  alike  enriched  by  them,  were  still  such  as  thoroughly 
to  daunt  evil-doers ;  sometimes  also  men  of  rank  had  to 
appear  almost  naked  and  sue  for  pardon.  Above  all,  the 
Court  of  Star  Chamber  aimed  at  enforcing  the  statute  of 
Livery,  which  prohibited  under  heavy  penalties  the  main- 
tenance by  noblemen  of  large  bodies  of  retainers  wearing 
their  livery  and  ready  to  wage  private  war  in  their  behalf. 
All  histories  mention  the  enormous  fine  of  15,000  marks 
(equivalent  to  more  than  100,000/.  of  our  money)  which 
Henry  inflicted  on  his  staunch  supporter  the  Earl  of 
Oxford,  for  breaking  this  statute  in  order  to  entertain  him 
more  splendidly  ;  it  appears  to  be  a  close  imitation  of  the 
conduct  of  Louis  XL  in  vindicating  his  sole  right  of  chase 
by  burning  all  the  nets  and  other  implements  collected 
by  the  Sire  de  Montmorency  for  his  use  on  a  visit.  It 
was,  however,  far  more  justifiable  than  this  act  of  the 
French  King  ;  for  it  is  evident  that  the  Earl  of  Oxford's 
conduct,  if  established  as  a  precedent,  would  at  any  time 
have  justified  noblemen  in  surrounding  themselves  with 
large  bodies  of  warlike  supporters  just  when   the  King 


-1509  Henry  Vlf.'s  English  Laws.  73 

was  going  to  receive  their  hospitality,  and  thus  to  place 
himself  most  completely  in  their  power  if  they  had  any 
treasonable  intentions. 

Other  laws  of  this  period  were  aimed  at  benefiting 
the  people  according  to  the  ideas  then  current.  Henry, 
following  the  example  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  en- 
deavoured to  regulate  the  weights  and  measures  through- 
out England.  He  introduced  the  first  Navi- 
gation Act,  providing  that  wine  and  woad  l^w.^Icc"" 
from  Saxony  and  Languedoc  should  be  con- 
veyed only  in  Enghsh  vessels,  and  thus  sacrificing  cheap- 
ness in  these  commodities  to  the  hope  of  creating  a  navy. 
He  ordered  that  the  byelaws  of  trade  guilds  should  not 
be  binding  till  they  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  great 
officers  of  State.  With  a  notion  of  humanity  much  in 
advance  of  his  time,  he  got  Parliament  to  enact  that  gaol- 
erships  should  not  be  patent  offices,  but  should  be  always 
under  the  control  and  responsibility  of  the  sheriffs. 
Abuses  in  prisons  were,  however,  too  deeply  rooted  to  be 
thus  abolished.  And  he  provided  the  order  for  suits  in 
forma  pauperis,  in  which  attorneys  and  counsel  are 
assigned  free  of  all  charges  to  very  poor  men — a  fact  on 
which  Lord  Campbell  has  made  the  interesting  remark 
that  in  our  day  counsel  are  always  anxious  to  do  their 
very  best  on  such  occasions  ;  as  also  in  defending  per- 
sons accused  of  treason,  when  fees  are  illegal. 

Another  important  part  of  Henry's  legislation  was  that 
which  had  to  do  with  foreign  trade.     This  occupied  much 
of  his  attention,  as  we  might  expect  from  a      ^^^^^  ^.^^^ 
King  who  had  watched  Louis  XL's  exertions      the  Nether- 

,  ■    r  r  T^       1        J         lands. 

in  this  line.     The  chief  exports  of  hngland 
at  this  time  were  wool,  cloth,  and  hides  ;  our  lead  mines 
roofed  nearly  all  the  cathedrals  and  large  buildings  of 
Europe,  and   of  tin  we  had   a   monopoly.      The    chief 


74  The  Early  Tudor s.  H^S- 

foreign  market  for  wool  was  afforded  by  the  Netherlands. 
Accordingly  one  of  the  main  objects  of  our  commercial 
policy  was  to  foster  this  trade,  and  also,  if  possible,  to 
force  English  cloth  into  sale  in  Flanders,  in  spite  of  the 
jealousy  felt  there  against  the  rising  manufactures  of 
England,  which  were  bidding  fair  to  supersede  their  own. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  risks  from  this  cause  were  much 
aggravated  by  Margaret  of  Burgundy's  vehement  hatred 
to  the  Lancastrian  King,  which  had  once  caused  the 
transference  to  Calais  of  the  English  staple.  When  this 
cause  of  difference  had  at  length  ceased,  the  '  Intercursus 
Magnus  '  of  1496  replaced  the  Flemish  trade  on  a  suffi- 
ciently liberal  basis.  Besides  its  already  mentioned  pro- 
visions, it  ordained  that  custom-house  officers  were  to  be 
polite,  and  not  to  break  up  packages  needlessly  ;  and  that 
on  no  account  were  they  to  force  sales  to  themselves. 
In  case  of  injury,  the  aggrieved  party  was  not  to  make 
reprisals,  but  to  appeal  to  the  offender's  sovereign  ;  and, 
to  avoid  piracy,  each  owner  was  to  deposit  double  the 
value  of  his  ship  and  cargo,  to  be  forfeited  if  his  mariners 
could  be  proved  guilty  of  that  crime.  Neither  party  was 
to  allow  foreign  vessels  to  be  attacked  in  its  ports  by  any 
hostile  power,  or  their  plunder  to  be  sold  there  :  in  case 
of  shipwreck,  the  cargo  might  be  reclaimed  within  a  year 
and  a  day  on  payment  of  salvage  expenses.  Care  was 
also  taken  to  foster  the  Mediterranean  trade,  which  sub- 
sequently lost  much  of  its  importance  through  Vasco  de 
Gama's  discovery  of  the  sea  route  to  the  east  by  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  {1497)  but  was  still  considerable 
in  Henry  VII. 's  time.  It  was  conducted  almost  entirely 
through  the  republic  of  Venice,  whose  galleys  used  to 
come  in  flotillas  to  the  English  Channel,  and  unload  at 
Sandwich,  Southampton,  or  London.  Their  cargo  con- 
sisted of  spices  (including  pepper),  Malmsey  wine  from 


-1509  Foreign  Trade.  75 

the  Morea  and  Crete ;  sugar  from  Cyprus,  Crete,  and 
Alexandria ;  silk  from  Persia,  Syria,  Greece,  and  Sicily ; 
cotton  from  Egypt  and  India ;  glass  from  the  East  and 
from  the  Murano  factories  at  Venice,  together  with  paper, 
illuminated  books,  and  other  articles.  The  Venetians 
exported  in  return  the  standard  English  commodities  of 
wool,  cloth,  hides,  lead,  and  tin  ;  being  liable,  like  other 
merchants,  to  a  suit  for  '  non-use '  if  they  did  not  take 
return  cargoes  of  English  goods. 

The  trade  with  France  was  chiefly  for  Gascon  wines, 
woad  from  Toulouse,  and  salt,  linen,  and  canvas  from 
Bretagne.  When  Louis XII.,  in  1 504,  avenged 
some  injuries  done  to  his  subjects  in  England  x,xIac. 
by  forbidding  the  export  of  wines  in  French 
bottoms,  this  naturally  compelled  the  English  to  use 
their  own  vessels  for  this  purpose — a  tendency  much 
strengthened  by  the  Navigation  Act  already  alluded  to. 
From  Spain  came  large  quantities  of  sweet  wines,  fruit, 
and  fine  Cordovan  leather  manufactured  from  goat  and 
kid  skins,  with  the  iron  of  Bilbao,  which  was  much  used 
for  agricultural  purposes  because  of  its  flexibility.  The 
Spanish  horses  were  also  of  a  particularly  fine  breed  and 
much  prized  as  hacks  and  chargers.  Accordingly  the 
commercial  intercourse  with  Spain  was  considerable,  and 
our  merchants  in  Spain  and  Andalusia  obtained  in  1530 
the  privilege  of  meeting  at  Seville,  Cadiz,  or  St.  Lucar, 
and  there  electing  their  own  governors,  with  '  twelve  an- 
cient and  expert  persons  to  be  their  assistants ;'  so  that 
they  might  be  defended  from  Spanish  exactions  and  the 
tyranny  of  the  Inquisition. 

It  is  remarkable  that  an  unadvcnturous  reign  like  that  of 
Henry  VII.  should  have  been  one  of  such  extensive  mari- 
time discovery.  The  lead  in  this  direction  was  of  course 
taken   by  other  nations,  especially  the  Portuguese,  who 


76  The  Early  Tudor s.  1485- 

were  the  first  to  apply  the  astrolabe  to  navigation  (using  it, 
as  we  do  the  sextant,  for  observations  of  latitude)  and  also 
,,  r       the  first  to  trust  the   mariner's  compass  for 

Voyages  of  ^ 

discovery.  occan  voyagcs.  They  thus  succeeded  in 
Gama.  reaching  Cape  Verde  in   1443,  Cape  Sierra 

Columbus.  j^g^j^  -^^  j^g2,  Cape  Lopez  in  1469,  and  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  in  i486  ;  the  right  of  discovery  along 
the  African  coast  was  yielded  to  them  by  Spain  in  a  treaty 
of  1479,  ^'^  spite  of  the  prior  claims  of  the  latter  country  as 
having  colonised  the  Canaries  in  1 393.  The  establishment 
of  a  Portuguese  monopoly  in  this  direction  naturally  turned 
the  thoughts  of  mariners  in  another  ;  and  as  the  hour  had 
come  when  new  discovery  was  almost  imperative,  so  the 
man  inspired  to  make  it  was  not  long  wanting.  In  the 
year  1482,  Christoval  Colon  (whose  name  was  Latinised 
into  '  Columbus ')  vainly  laid  his  projects  for  reaching 
Asia  by  sailing  westward  before  the  authorities  of  his 
native  Genoa,  who  thought  them  beyond  their  means ; 
and  then  before  the  Portuguese  government,  which  tried 
to  steal  a  march  on  him  by  privately  despatching  a  vessel 
in  the  direction  indicated  by  him.  Deeply  resenting  this 
ungenerous  conduct,  he  went  to  Spain  in  1484,  and,  find- 
ing the  delays  there  intolerable,  despatched  his  brother 
Bartolommeo  to  England  in  the  next  year.  Bartolommeo 
was  however  taken  by  pirates,  and  remained  long  in 
captivity;  thus  it  was  only  on  February  13,  1488,  that 
he  was  able  to  present  to  Henry  VII.  a  map  of  the  world 
drawn  by  himself,  and  to  ask  his  patronage  for  his  brother. 
The  King  liked  the  scheme  so  well  that  his  offers  actually 
preceded  those  made  in  Spain  to  Columbus:  yet  by  a 
new  series  of  cross  accidents  Bartolommeo  reached  Spain 
only  after  his  brother's  departure  from  Palos  in  1492,  and 
in  fact  after  he  had  discovered  the  West  Indies.  Never 
surely  since  the  world  began  was  the  fate  of  nations  and 


-1509  Maritime  Discovery.  77 

continents  decided  by  such  a  succession  of  strange 
casualties  as  those  which  on  the  one  hand  produced 
Columbus's  success,  and  on  the  other  ordained  that 
Spain,  not  England,  should  be  the  power  under  whose  flag 
it  was  achieved,  and  that  the  energy  of  our  country  should 
not  be  frittered  away,  as  that  of  Spain  was,  upon  a  vast 
system  of  gold  and  silver  mining  by  slave-labour.  Mean- 
time a  healthier  though  less  romantic  series  of  discoveries 
was  giving  England  the  first  claim  to  a  western  empire 
of  far  superior  ultimate  value  to  all  that  even  Mexico  or 
Peru  had  to  offer. 

As  early  as  1496  Henry  VII.  issued  to  John  Cabot 
(Gaboto),  a  Genoese  mariner  long  resident  at  Bristol,  a 
patent  of  leave  to  discover  unknown  lands,  ^^^  cabots 
and  to  conquer  and  settle  them.  The  King 
was  to  receive  a  fifth  of  the  profits  without  paying  any 
part  of  the  charges ;  instead  of  money,  he  gave  a  mono- 
poly of  trade  with  the  countries  to  be  discovered,  and 
their  government  subject  to  the  English  Crown.  Like 
Columbus,  Cabot  hoped  to  find  a  passage  to  the  Indies, 
only  his  aim  was  a  north-western  instead  of  a  due 
westward  route.  One  ship  alone  could  be  chartered  ; 
this  sailed  from  Bristol  on  June  24,  1497,  and  Cabot  was 
soon  rewarded  by  the  discovery  of  Newfoundland,  whose 
fog-banks  must  have  been  the  strangest  contrast  to  the 
sunny  lands  discovered  by  Columbus  five  years  before. 
He  then  reached  Cape  Breton  (which  he  called  Prima 
Vista)  and  probably  also  Nova  Scotia;  thus  seeing  the 
mainland  of  America  before  Columbus,  who  only  in  his 
last  voyage  in  1498  coasted  along  the  Isthmus  of  Panama. 
There  is  infinite  reason  to  regret  that  Sebastian  Cabot, 
John's  son  and  successor,  had  not  more  of  Columbus's 
enthusiasm  and  literary  power,  so  as  to  put  his  memoirs  in 
a  shape  which  would  have  preserved  them.   We  only  know 


78  The  Early  Tiidors.  1485- 

that  he  made,  almost  immediately  after  his  father's  death, 
one  or  more  voyages  on  the  original  track,  going  as  far 
north  as  the  Arctic  Circle,  but  being  hindered  from  press- 
ing beyond  it  or  into  Hudson's  Bay  by  a  mutiny  of  his 
crews,  who  were  naturally  alai^med  at  the  masses  of  ice 
surrounding  them.  After  this  he  entered  the  service  of 
Spain,  and  in  1 525  was  commissioned  to  make  a  voyage  to 
the  Moluccas  by  the  newly-discovered  Strait  of  Magellan. 
The  discontent  of  his  officers  was,  however,  so  threatening 
that  he  turned  up  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  and  spent  some 
years  in  exploring  the  countries  near  it,  ascending  in 
boats  the  rivers  Parana  and  Paraguay,  and  asking  in 
vain  for  help  to  colonise  these  fine  plains.  In  the  course 
of  one  of  his  voyages,  it  is  hard  to  say  which,  he  ran 
along  the  American  coast  as  far  south  as  Florida,  thus 
surveying  not  less  than  1800  miles  of  low  and  featureless 
shore.  During  his  absence  the  Bristol  merchants  sent 
hght  vessels  westward  almost  every  year  in  quest  of  new 
lands,  and  had  he  been  in  England  in  1509,  there  is  at 
least  a  possible  chance  that  Henry's  VIII. 's  ambition 
might  have  been  turned  to  discovery  rather  than  war. 
Under  Edward  VI.  he  came  here  again,  receiving  a 
pension  of  250  marks,  and  the  title  of  '  Grand  Pilot ' 
— an  office  which  appears  to  have  been  created  for  him. 
Curiously  enough,  the  only  personal  glimpse  of  the  great 
navigator  which  we  can  obtain  is  an  account  of  his  death- 
bed. Few  men  have  ever  lived  a  more  active  life  ;  nor 
were  his  efforts  without  immediate  effect  on  the  national 
welfare,  considering  the  wealth  ever  since  derived  from 
the  Newfoundland  fisheries.  But  his  chief  glory  will  ever 
be  that  he  provided  against  the  time  to  come  a  reserved 
space  practically  inexhaustible  for  the  swarming  thou- 
sands of  Northern  Europe,  where  every  nerve  would  be 
strung  by  hardship  and  peril,  where,  in  spite  of  the  vast 


-1509         The  Revival  of  Classical  Learning.  79 

scale  of  obstacles,  nature  might  still  be  subdued  to  men's 
needs,  and  where  freedom  would  have  a  natural  home. 
Such  was  the  noble  region  discovered  for  England  by 
this  Italian  mariner.  Nor  ought  we  to  ignore  the 
mental  effect  of  such  additions  to  knowledge,  and  the 
extraordinary  stimulus  which  they  gave  to  thought.  Just 
as  learned  Romans  felt  that  the  world  became  grander  to 
them  when  the  mystery  of  Britain  was  at  length  revealed 
by  Caesar's  invasion,  so  thinking  men  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century  saw  with  a  kind  of  rapture  creation 
thus  '  broadening  on  their  view.*  '  Before  these  days," 
says  Peter  Martyr  in  a  letter  to  Cardinal  Sforza,  '  hardly 
half  of  the  world's  circumference  was  known  to  geog- 
graphers  ;  of  the  rest,  only  the  feeblest  and  most  uncer- 
tain mention  had  ever  been  made.  But  now,  glorious  to 
relate,  light  has  under  the  auspices  of  our  sovereigns 
been  thrown  on  the  secret  of  the  ages.  I  feel  my  heart 
elated  with  real  blessedness  when  I  confer  with  intelligent 
men  who  have  been  in  those  countries.  Let  others  de- 
light in  avarice  or  the  lusts  of  the  flesh ;  but  let  us  be 
filled  with  rapture  in  thinking  of  God,  who  has  revealed 
such  wonders  in  our  day.' 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   REVIVAL  OF  CLASSICAL   LEARNING. 
1 390- 1  509. 

When  the  great  masterpieces  of  ancient  literature  were 

first  rediscovered  and  then  spread  far  and  wide  by  means 

of  manuscript  and  printed  copies,  the  effect 

on  intellectual  minds  was  not  a  little  like     R''enais°slnce. 

that  described  at  the  end  of  the  last  chapter. 

A  wide  and  grand  America  of  inward  thought  was  restored 


8o  The  Early  Tudor s.  1485- 

after  centuries  of  oblivion,  and  that  with  the  effect  not 
merely  of  increasing  knowledge,  but  of  revolutionising 
all  methods  of  reasoning,  placing  all  opinions  in  a  differ- 
ent point  of  view,  and  awakening  a  new  and  energetic 
trust  in  the  future.  There  could  be  no  doubt  whatever 
that  life  was  worth  living  when  any  day  might  restore  to 
students  some  new  treasure  of  lost  wisdom,  and  when, 
moreover,  each  new  discovery  threw  ever-increasing 
light  upon  those  already  made,  and  brought  nearer  and 
nearer  the  final  victory  over  the  old  learning,  which  not 
seldom  employed  its  crabbed  and  debased  Latin  in 
investigating  by  hopeless  logical  methods  a  variety  of 
questions  which  had  better  have  been  left  alone.  Know- 
ledge now  showed  herself  once  more  enrobed  in  beauty  ; 
accordingly  the  time  was  one  of  progress  such  as  it  is 
hard  for  us  even  to  imagine. 

Of  course  the  knowledge  of  Latin  writers  had  never 

thoroughly  died  out  in  mediaeval  Europe.     Monks  had 

cultivated   their  domains    according  to  the 

Enthusiasm  -   ,       _  .      , 

for  Latin  precepts  of  the  Roman  writers  on  agriculture. 

authors.^  At   a  very  early   date  Vergil   and    Horace, 

Colet,  More,  ^j^^  Statius  and  Ovid,  were  read  in  German 
schools  ;  and  at  home  we  have  only  to  look  through  a 
few  pages  of  Chaucer  to  see  his  familiarity  with  these 
poets.  Infinite  pains  were  every  now  and  then  employed 
in  ransacking  libraries  for  manuscripts  of  the  great  Latin 
authors ;  in  this  way  the  celebrated  Poggio  Bracciolini, 
while  attending  the  Council  of  Constance  in  141 5,  dis- 
covered at  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall,  covered  with  filth 
and  rubbish  and  on  the  point  of  perishing  from  age  and 
neglect,  what  turned  out  to  be  a  complete  copy  of 
Quintilian  and  another  of  the  greater  part  of  Valerius 
Flaccus's  '  Argonautica.'  The  same  distinguished  book- 
finder  afterwards  lighted  upon  the  last  twelve  comedies  of 


-1509         The  Revival  of  Classical  Learning.  81 

Plautus,  and  Cicero's  Verrine  orations,  De  Oratore,  and 
Brutus ;  others  of  Cicero's  orations  had  been  discovered 
about  a  century  before.  After  adding  a  MS.  of  Lucretius 
to  his  discoveries,  Poggio  sought  with  the  utmost  anxiety, 
but  in  vain,  for  the  works  of  Tacitus.  These  were  not 
discovered  till  nearly  a  hundred  years  later,  when  a 
copy  of  the  '  Histories  '  came  to  hand  in  Germany,  and 
was  presented  to  Pope  Leo  X.  Most  passionate  of  all 
was  the  longing  to  discover  the  lost  works  of  Livy.  A 
monk  assured  Poggio  that  he  had  seen  a  copy  in  the 
Cistercian  monastery  of  Sora ;  but  all  enquiries  for  it 
were  in  vain,  and  the  blank  still  remains  unsupplied, 
except  as  regards  about  thirty  books.  The  enthusiasm 
for  classical  works  was  in  proportion  to  their  rarity. 
Alfonso  of  Aragon,  King  of  Naples,  refused,  even  when 
engaged  in  a  campaign,  to  miss  his  daily  lecture  on  Livy, 
and  is  said  to  have  been  cured  of  a  severe  illness  by 
the  delight  of  hearing  Quintus  Curtius  read.  Even  at  an 
earlier  date  Giovanni  di  Ravenna,  a  pupil  of  Petrarca, 
knew  by  heart  all  the  classics  which  had  been  discovered 
up  to  his  time.  Nor  had  Petrarca  himself  been  far  behind 
on  this  point ;  for  he  tells  us  that  in  the  course  of  a  walk 
he  went  over  in  his  own  mind  the  whole  works  of  Vergil, 
Orosius,  Pliny,  Mela,  and  Claudian,  in  order  to  remember 
all  that  these  authors  had  said  about  the  position  of 
'  Ultima  Thule.'  Indeed  this  great  man,  who  is  reverenced 
as  the  father  of  Italian  patriotism,  may  also  be  said  to 
have  done  more  than  any  other  single  person  in  restoring 
scholarship,  and  that  more  than  a  century  before  the  times 
of  the  great  Renaissance.  From  him  the  enthusiasm  for 
these  pursuits  spread  very  widely  in  Italy,  and  even  strongly 
affected  politics,  inasmuch  as  Rienzi's  rebellion  against  the 
Papal  power  in  1347  was  an  attempt  to  set  up  once  more  in 
Rome  the  authority  of  the  '  Senatus  Populusque  Romanus, 

G 


82  The  Early  Tiidors.  1485- 

and  was  entirely  founded  on  classical  ideas,  thus  gaining 
Petrarca's  strongest  sympathy.  Yet  even  the  enthusiasm 
of  this  period  was  slight  in  comparison  with  that  of  the 
later  time  when  Greek  teachers  and  Greek  books  came 
at  last  to  exhibit  ancient  thought,  not  in  the  form  which 
Roman  eclecticism  had  given  it,  but  in  its  simple  and 
native  beauty.  The  more  advanced  knowledge  of  Greek 
began  with  Manuel  Chrysoloras.  This  eminent  man 
came  to  Venice  about  1390  to  entreat  help  against  the 
Turks  who  were  already  threatening  Constantinople ; 
when  his  embassy  was  over,  he  was  persuaded  to  return 
and  settle  at  Florence  as  professor  of  his  native  language. 
In  1422  Francesco  Filelfo,  Chrysoloras'  son-in-law,  and 
two  other  Italians,  Guarino  and  Aurispa,  were  despatched 
to  Constantinople  to  collect  books.  Guarino  was  ship- 
wrecked on  his  return,  and  one  of  two  valuable  cases 
of  MSS.  went  down  with  the  vessel — a  disaster  which  is 
said  to  have  turned  his  hair  completely  white,  though  he 
was  hardly  twenty  years  old.  Aurispa,  more  fortunate, ' 
arrived  at  Venice  in  the  next  year,  bringing  238  precious 
volumes,  among  which  were  the  works  of  Plato,  Lucian, 
Xenophon,  Diodorus,  Arrian,  Strabo,  Callimachus,  and 
Pindar.  Filelfo  himself  remained  abroad  till  1427,  and 
then  returned  to  become  the  master  of  Greek  learning  in 
his  native  country.  After  him  a  succession  of  magnificent 
scholars  maintained  in  this  new  field  the  honour  of  Italy. 
When  Henry  VII.  came  to  the  throne,  the  celebrated 
Politian  (so  named  from  his  birth-place,  the  Tuscan 
Montepulciano — his  family  name  being  Ambrogini)  was 
thirty  years  old,  and  had  greatly  distinguished  himself 
by  his  knowledge  of  the  classical  authors  and  of  Roman 
laws.  Contemporary  with  him  were  Marsilio  Ficino 
the  translator  of  Plato,  and  Pico  di  Mirandola,  who 
before  his  death  at  the   age  of  thirty-one  had  studied 


-1509         The  Revival  of  Classical  Learning.  83 

Jewish  literature  with  the  most  unwearied  industry, 
was  planning  a  gigantic  '  Defence  of  Christianity  '  to  be 
founded  upon  it,  and  lived  in  hope  of  being  allowed  to 
preach  this  doctrine,  going  from  town  to  town  barefooted 
with  crucifix  in  hand.  At  this  point  began  the  con- 
nection of  English  scholars  with  Italian  learning,  in- 
asmuch as  William  Grocyn,  after  having  been  for  some 
time  Greek  professor  at  Oxford,  spent  two  years  (some- 
where between  1485  and  1491)  at  Florence,  attending  the 
lectures  of  Politian  and  Chalcondylas ;  and  about  the 
same  time  the  celebrated  Linacre,  afterwards  founder  of 
the  College  of  Physicians,  was  selected  because  of  the 
elegance  and  modesty  of  his  manners  as  the  associate 
in  study  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici's  children.  On  their 
return,  these  heroes  of  learning  communicated  their  own 
ardour  to  kindred  spirits  in  England,  above  all  to  Colet, 
afterwards  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  (who  himself  spent  some 
time  in  Italy),  and  to  Sir  Thomas  More.  What  rank 
was  held  by  these  last  in  the  republic  of  letters  we  can  in 
some  degree  judge  from  the  account  of  them  given  by 
Erasmus,  who  on  coming  to  Oxford  in  1498  to  study  Greek 
there,  declares  that  '  to  be  in  company  with  such  men 
as  Colet  he  would  not  refuse  to  live  even  in  Scythia.' 
'  When  I  hear  my  friend  Colet,'  he  says  on  another 
occasion,  '  it  is  like  listening  to  Plato  himself.  In  Grocyn 
who  does  not  admire  the  wide  range  of  his  knowledge  ? 
What  could  be  more  searching,  deep,  and  refined  than 
the  judgment  of  Linacre  ?  And  when  did  nature  ever 
mould  a  character  more  gentle,  endearing,  and  happy 
than  Thomas  More  ?'  We  may  judge,  too,  of  the  bold- 
ness with  which  literary  research  was  then  pursued  by  the 
recorded  fact  that  Grocyn,  after  giving  at  St.  Paul's  the 
one  or  two  first  lectures  of  a  course  on  the  '  Celestial 
Hierarchies,'  which  were  supposed  till  then  to  have  been 


84  The  Early  Tudor s.  1485- 

written  by  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  the  disciple  of  St. 
Paul,  suddenly  announced  to  the  astonished  audience 
that  continued  study  had  made  him  absolutely  disbelieve 
the  genuineness  of  this  book,  and  that  the  course  was 
therefore  at  an  end.  No  such  bold  assertion  had  been 
made  since  Lorenzo  Valla  had  dared  to  prove  the  letter 
of  Abgarus  to  our  Lord  and  the  '  Donation  of  Constan- 
tine  '  to  be  forgeries ;  and  in  uttering  it  Grocyn  may  be 
said  to  have  inaugurated  that  English  love  of  truth  in 
matters  of  knowledge  and  science  which  has  borne  ever 
since  then  such  noble  fruits  among  us.  Thus  classical 
literature  soon  became  in  England  a  pursuit  most  gen- 
erous and  inspiring ;  never  getting  pedantic  as  in  Italy, 
where  men  quarrelled  almost  to  the  death  on  the  small- 
est matters  of  philology,  and  on  such  questions  as  whether 
Lucius  and  Arruntius  were  sons  or  grandsons  of  Tar- 
quinius  Priscus.  Still  less  was  there  ever  in  England 
any  of  the  strange  longing  for  heathenism  which  ap- 
peared every  now  and  then  in  Italy  ;  as  when  Pomponius 
Laetus  raised  an  altar  to  Romulus,  and  imitated  in  private 
the  worship  described  by  Ovid.  Nor  were  Englishmen 
ever  inclined  to  heathenise  Christianity  by  classicising 
the  language  of  the  Bible,  as  when  an  Italian  expressed 
'  God  the  Father '  by  '  nimborum  Pater  imbripotens,'  the 
Holy  Ghost  by  '  caelestis  Zephyrus,'  and  the  Eucharist  by 
'  sinceram  Cererem.'  Far  different  were  the  thoughts 
which  occupied  such  men  as  More,  Colet,  Grocyn,  and 
Erasmus.  We  find  More,  for  instance,  lecturing  at  St. 
Lawrence  Church  in  the  Old  Jewry  on  the  '  Civitate  Dei ' 
of  Augustine  (that  is,  on  the  ways  of  God  to  man) — '  a 
very  singular  occupation,*  remarks  Sir  James  Mackintosh, 
'  for  a  young  lawyer.'  His  house  was,  according  to  Eras- 
mus, '  a  school  and  exercise  of  the  Christian  religion  ;  all 
its  inhabitants,  male  and  female,  applied  their  leisure  to 


-i5og         The  Rcvwal  of  Classical  Learning.  85 

liberal  studies  and  profitable  reading,  though  piety  was 
their  principal  care.'  From  purely  classical  work  More 
was  debarred  in  later  life  both  by  his  civil  employments 
and  by  the  practical  turn  of  his  mind  ;  what  his  taste  in 
such  matters  was  we  may  guess  from  his  sending  to  his 
imaginary  lUcpia  '  a  pretty  fardel  of  books  '  containing 
'  the  most  part  of  Plato's  works,  some  of  Aristotle's,  and 
Theophrastus  on  Plants.'  '  Of  the  poets,'  he  continues, 
'  they  have  Aristophanes,  Homer,  Euripides,  and  Sopho- 
cles, in  Aldus  small  print ;  of  the  historians  Thucydides, 
Herodotus,  and  Herodian.  They  set  great  store  by  Plu- 
tarch's books,  and  are  delighted  with  Lucian's  merry 
conceits  and  jests.'  Learning  like  this  had  been  thor- 
oughly transfused  into  More's  mind,  and  had  in  a  man- 
ner become  his  very  self;  instead  of  merely  quoting 
Plato,  he  tried  to  think  as  Plato  would  have  thought  if 
placed  among  the  exigencies  of  modern  life.  In  the 
same  manner  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  looked  upon  all 
classical  acquirement  as  valuable  mainly  from  its  power 
of  ordering  the  mind  for  thought-purposes,  and  raising  it 
to  the  noblest  objects.  A  theologian  above  all  things,  he 
loved  chiefly  to  dwell  on  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  the  Gospel 
history,  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer.  But 
all  these  subjects  were  animated  by  him  with  the  new  spirit 
which  springs  from  a  liberal  education.  He  delighted, 
as  Mr.  Seebohm  says,  to  trace  in  St.  Paul's  Epistles  the 
marks  of  the  Apostle's  character ;  the  '  vehemence  of 
speaking '  which  would  not  allow  him  to  perfect  his  sen- 
tences ;  the  rare  prudence  with  which  he  would  temper 
his  speech  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  different  classes  by 
whom  his  epistle  would  be  read  ;  his  eager  expectation 
soon  to  visit  Spain,  which,  however,  did  not  make  him 
impatient  when  it  was  disappointed.  Like  Dr.  Arnold  in 
our  own  time,  Colet  would  illustrate  St.  Paul  by  reference 


86  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

to  the  state  of  Roman  society  as  described  by  Suetonius. 
In  all  these  and  many  other  ways  the  choicest  results  of 
scholarship  were  as  thoroughly  employed  by  him  for  re- 
ligious purposes  as  they  were  by  More  to  bring  about 
reforms  in  state  administration. 

Unlike  his  two   cherished   friends,  Erasmus  was  the 
scholar  pure  and  simple,  the  man  who  had  no  occupation 
apart  from  his  books  ;   moreover  he  was  a 
Er^mu°*^  thorough  cosmopolite.     Born  in  1467  at  Rot- 

terdam, he  had  as  little  of  the  typical  Dutch- 
man in  him  as  can  well  be  imagined  ;  indeed,  nothing  was 
ever  so  intolerable  to  him  (except,  indeed,  the  monastic 
life  at  Stein,  from  which  he  had  escaped  in  order  to  study 
at  Paris)  as  the  interminable  feasts  of  his  native  country, 
and  the  utter  disesteem  in  which  learning  was  held 
there.  From  the  terrible  wretchedness  to  which  his 
poverty  condemned  him  at  Paris  he  was  rescued  by 
Lord  Mountjoy,  who  brought  him  for  the  first  time  to 
England  in  1498,  settling  on  him  a  small  life  pension. 
With  this  and  the  presents  which  he  soon  began  to 
receive  Erasmus  contented  himself;  refusing  the  offer 
of  a  semi-royal  pupil,  James  Stanley  the  King's  step- 
brother, who  was  to  be  equipped  with  sufficient  learning 
to  allow  of  his  being  made  Bishop  of  Ely  when  just  out  of 
his  teens.  Before  the  time  of  Erasmus's  second  visit  to 
England  in  1505  he  had  become  confessedly  the  first 
classical  scholar  in  Europe,  and  was  well  received  by 
Archbishop  Warham  and  by  Bishop  Fisher,  who  were  both 
patrons  of  the  new  learning.  Utterly  rejecting  any  use 
whatever  of  modern  languages,  he  had  formed  for  him- 
self a  Latin  style  of  surpassing  excellence,  which  seemed 
able,  without  departing  from  the  old  forms  and  struc- 
ture, to  express  all  the  ten  thousand  objects  and  cir- 
cumstances of  modern  life.     He  had  in  1500  taken  the 


-1 509         The  Revival  of  Classical  Learning.  87 

world  by  storm  with  his  '  Adagia,'  a  work  in  which,  after 
the  fashion  of  ItaUan  pohticians,  he  grouped  round  a 
number  of  proverbs  all  the  associated  thoughts  which 
he  could  remember  in  ancient  writings.  As  speci- 
mens of  these  may  be  mentioned  two  on  which  he 
was  for  ever  harping — '  nil  monacho  indoctius '  and 
'  dulce  bellum  inexpertis  ; '  his  bitter  hatred  for  the  old 
life  at  Stein  was  brought  out  in  the  first,  his  deep  grief 
at  the  devastation  of  Italy  in  the  second.  It  is  striking 
to  find  that,  amid  the  manifold  hardships  of  his  third 
journey  to  England  (which  immediately  followed  the 
accession  of  Henry  VIIL),  the  terrible  weather  through 
which  he  rode,  and  the  filth  and  rudeness  of  the  road- 
side inns,  he  could  quietly  occupy  himself  in  planning 
his  wonderfully  witty  '  Encomium  Moriae  '  (the  Praise  of 
Folly),  in  which  he  most  impartially  satirizes  bookworms, 
grammarians,  rhetoricians,  lawyers,  schoolmen,  pilgrims, 
pardoners,  schoolmasters,  sportsmen,  monks,  courtiers, 
princes,  kings,  and  even  the  Pope  himself.  His 
'  Colloquia  '  are  still  more  admirable  from  the  brightness 
of  their  style  and  their  beautiful  description  of  religion 
working  amidst  all  the  various  circumstances  and  acci- 
dents of  common  life.  In  reading  them  we  are  perpetually 
reminded  of  Socrates's  gentle  and  kindly  persuasiveness 
as  described  by  Xenophon  ;  for,  like  the  Athenian  philo- 
sopher, he  is  occupied  in  showing  how  youth  can  be 
delightful  and  gracious,  how  old  age  and  death  may  be 
disarmed  of  all  their  terrors,  and  how  a  simple  heart  void 
of  superstition  is  able  to  bear  up  against  even  the  ex- 
tremest  hardship  and  danger.  Above  all,  there  stands 
out  in  this,  as  in  all  his  writings,  a  heartfelt  admiration 
for  the  simple  life  of  a  kindly  household  ;  like  Luther, 
he  is  never  weary  of  contrasting  this  with  the  so-called 
religious  life  of  monasteries.     Even  apart  from  the  cor- 


88  77/1?  Early  Tudors.  "1485- 

ruptions  found  in  the  cloister,  he  is  firmly  persuaded 
that  those  who  adopt  such  a  life  choose  not  the  better 
but  the  worse  part.  Strongly,  indeed,  were  these  ad- 
mirable works  calculated  to  influence  England,  where, 
indeed,  more  than  one  of  them  were  written  ;  in  point  of 
fact,  their  author  seemed  at  one  time  hkely  to  stamp  the 
age  with  the  mark  of  his  own  moderation,  thoughtfulness, 
and  humanity.  In  the  course  of  the  subsequent  history 
we  shall  see  what  he  thought  of  the  wars  which  were 
soon  to  disappoint  his  best  hopes,  and  what  farther  con- 
tributions he  was  in  spite  of  them  to  make  to  the  welfare 
of  both  Church  and  State  in  England. 

The  question  now  occurred  to  thinking  minds  by 
what  educational  institutions  there  would  be  the  best 
chance  of  giving  the  rising  generation  a  firm  hold  on 
the  new  learning ;  and  new  and  noble  foundations  for 
this  purpose   soon   came  into  existence.     Richard  Fox, 

who  had  distinguished  himself  while  Bishop 
Colleges^for  of  Durham  in  repelling  Scottish  invasions, 
Leamtng  afterwards,    when    Bishop    of   Winchester, 

founded  the  grammar  schools  of  Grantham 
and  Taunton.  At  Oxford  he  had  thought  of  erecting 
a  monastery,  but  was  dissuaded  by  Oldham  Bishop  of 
Exeter,  who  with  remarkable  foresight  enquired,  '  Would 
it  not  be  better  for  us  to  provide  for  the  increase  of  learn- 
ing, and  for  such  as  shall  do  good  to  the  Church  and 
Commonwealth,  rather  than  build  houses  and  provide 
livelihood  for  monks,  whose  end  and  fall  lue  may  live  to 
see?'  Accordingly  Bishop  Fox  founded  Corpus  Christi 
College,  the  statutes  of  which  strongly  enjoined  the  Fel- 
lows to  pursue  the  new  learning.  The  professor  of  Latin 
then  was  particularly  ordered  to  extirpate  barbarism — 
that  is,  monkish  Latin  ('  ut  barbariem  a  nostro  alveario 
exstirpet '),  and  the  Greek  professor  was  to  read  and  explain 


-1509  New  Colleges  and  Schools.  89 

all  the  best  writers  in  that  language.  Benefits  of  the  same 
kind  had  been  conferred  on  Cambridge  by  the  munificence 
of  the  Lady  Margaret.  Herself  a  person  of  simple  and 
uncritical  piety,  and  as  disinclined  as  possible  to  go  in 
search  of  new  things,  she  was  nevertheless  so  thoroughly 
under  the  influence  of  Bishop  Fisher,  her  chaplain  and 
confessor,  that  she  was  induced  to  erect  Christ's  and  St. 
John's  Colleges  in  that  university,  in  the  interest  of  the 
newer  studies.  Both  of  these  were  old  institutions  much 
decayed  ;  she  gave  them  suitable  buildings,  and  provided 
for  the  Masters,  Fellows,  and  Scholars  incomes,  not 
splendid  according  to  our  notions,  but  such  as  would  sup- 
ply the  low  living  which  was  then  thought  to  lead  to  high 
thinking.  Of  Christ's  College,  which  alone  was  com- 
pleted in  her  lifetime,  she  made  Fisher  the  Visitor,  thus 
securing  that  its  members  should  Hve  up  to  their  founder's 
idea.  The  Fellows  were  to  have  an  annual  stipend  of 
\y.  Sifd.  to  16^.  %d.,  according  to  their  degrees  ;  with  one 
shilling  a  week  for  commons,  and  135'.  &fd.  a  year  for  their 
'livery,'  which  was  to  be  of  cloth  of  one  colour  bought  at 
the  celebrated  national  emporium  of  Stourbridge  Fair. 
In  all  elections  the  poorer  candidate  was  to  be  preferred  ; 
any  one  who  had  a  private  income  of  10/.  was  ineligible 
for  a  fellowship.  Dogs  or  hawks  were  forbidden  in 
college ;  cards  and  dice  were  to  be  played  only  in  hall 
at  Christmas-time,  when  other  jurisdictions  were  for  the 
time  superseded  by  that  of  the  '  Rex  Natalitius  '  or  King 
of  Nowell.  What  precisely  was  meant  by  secular  (that 
is  non-monastic)  education  in  those  days  we  are  quite 
clearly  informed  in  the  detailed  accounts  which  remain 
of  the  foundation  of  St.  Paul's  School  in  1510  by  Dean 
Colet.  This  was  to  contain  153  boys  (the  number  being 
taken  from  that  of  the  fish  in  St.  John  xxi.),  and  to 
be  taught  'the  old  Latin  speech,  the  very  Roman  tongue 


90  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

used  in  the  time  of  Tully  and  Sallust  and  Vergil  and 
Terence  ;  the  Latin  adulterate,  which  blind  fools  brought 
into  the  world,  being  absolutely  banished.'  They  were 
also  to  learn  Greek,  '  if  such  can  be  gotten  ' — a  cautiously 
worded  injunction,  and  probably  meant  to  avoid  exciting 
suspicion  against  the  school  as  teaching  the  language  of 
heresy.  Colet  commissioned  the  learned  Linacre  to  draw 
up  a  Latin  grammar  to  be  used  at  St.  Paul's ;  but  when 
it  was  done  thought  it  too  long  and  involved  for  his 
'little  beginners.'  The  first  Headmaster  was  William 
Lilly,  the  godson  of  Grocyn  and  friend  of  More ;  he  had 
learned  Latin  in  Italy  and  had  hved  for  years  at  Rhodes 
to  perfect  himself  in  Greek.  In  the  opinion  of  Erasmus 
(who  thought  a  teacher  as  important  to  the  common- 
wealth as  a  bishop),  Lilly  was  a  thorough  master  in 
the  art  of  educating  youth  ;  which  meant,  as  another 
letter  of  Erasmus  shows,  that,  among  other  qualifica- 
tions, he  had  studied  Plato  and  Aristotle  among  philo- 
sophers ;  among  poets,  Homer  and  Ovid ;  in  geography, 
Mela,  Ptolemy,  Pliny,  Strabo.  '  The  teacher,'  Erasmus 
continues,  '  should  be  able  to  trace  the  origin  of  words, 
and  their  gradual  corruption  in  the  languages  of  Constan- 
tinople, Italy,  Spain,  and  France.  He  should  know  the 
ancient  names  of  trees,  animals,  instruments,  clothes, 
and  gems,  with  regard  to  which  it  is  incredible  how 
ignorant  even  educated  men  are.  ...  I  want  the  teacher 
to  have  traversed  the  whole  field  of  knowledge,  that  he 
may  spare  each  of  his  scholars  doing  it.'  The  good  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's,  though  unwilling  to  give  up  the  stimulus 
to  learning  which  corporal  punishment  affords,  was  yet 
vehement  against  the  tyrants  who  thought  that  only  by 
flogging  could  boys'  unruly  spirits  be  tamed.  Doubtless 
there  was  room  for  change  in  this  point,  when  it  was 
thought  a  proper  evidence  of  discipline   to   scourge  an 


-1509  Literature  of  the  Time..  9 1 

undergraduate  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  under  the 
Lady  Margaret's  window — she  not  interfering  except  by- 
calling  '  Lente,  lente ;  '  and  when  little  boys  used  to 
be  whipped  in  the  presence  of  guests  during  dinner, 
not  because  they  had  done  anything  wrong,  but  because 
they  might.  Finally,  instead  of  appointing  ecclesiastics 
as  Visitors  of  St.  Paul's  School,  Colet  placed  it  under  '  the 
most  honest  and  faithful  fellowship  of  the  Mercers  of 
London  ' — '  under  married  citizens  of  established  reputa- 
tion,' as  Erasmus  puts  it.  Among  all  men  to  whom  life 
had  introduced  him,  the  Dean  had  found  he  said,  least 
corruption  in  these. 

Few  people  at  this  time  contributed  more  to  the  spread 
of  literature  than  the  printers ;  whose  business  was 
then  held  to  include  the  correction  of  the  press,  as 
it  was  not  usual  to  send  proof-sheets  to  the  author  or 
editor.  Hence  the  heads  of  such  establishments  as  that 
of  the  Frobens  at  Basle,  the  Aldi  at  Venice,  the  Etiennes 
at  Paris,  required  to  be,  and  actually  were,  men  of  great 
learning,  who  took  care  to  have  their  sons  specially  edu- 
cated in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew  forthe  pur-  punters, 
poses  of  their  business.     In  the  workshop  of      yy"ky" 

'^  .  de  Worde. 

the  Frobens  it  is  said  that  every  one,  composi-  Poetry  of 
tors  and  all,  used  Greek  as  their  daily  Ian-  '  *  "'"^' 
guage.  Though  not  quite  up,  as  regards  printing,  to  the 
standard  of  Italy,  France,  or  Switzerland,  England  still 
was  faithful  to  the  noble  tradition  of  Caxton  ;  Wynkyn  de 
Worde,  who  had  been  Caxton's  assistant,  having  printed 
not  less  than  sixty-six  works  between  15 10  and  1520. 
This  is  not  to  be  taken  as  indicating  that  English  writers 
were  then  numerous ;  on  the  contrary,  hardly  any  time  in 
our  history,  has  added  so  little  to  our  literature  as  that  of 
Henry  VII.  and  his  son.  England  was  then  going  to 
school  and  gathering  materials  for  future  effort.    Our  polite 


92  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

litcrature  for  this  period  is  represented  almost  entirely  by 
Barklay's  '  Ship  of  Foolcs,'  printed  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde 
in  1 508.  Even  this  was  an  adapted  translation  from  a 
German  work ;  the  author,  however,  has  some  personal 
touches,  as  when  he  confesses  that  he  himself  is  like  other 
clerks,  whoso  '  frowardly  them  guide,'  that  when  once  they 
have  got  promotion  they  give  up  all  study.  To  be  made 
'  parson  of  Honington  or  Clist,'  it  is  required,  he  intimates, 
to  be  skilful  rather  in  flattery  and  field-sports  than  in 
divinity.  Yet  he  seems  to  show  this  self-blame  is  more  or 
less  ironical,  as  in  another  place  he  speaks  of  the  delight 
of  having  many  books  always  in  hand,  and  binding  them 
handsomely  in  '  damas,  satten,  or  else  in  velvet  pure.' 
Hawes's  '  Pastime  of  Pleasure  '  came  from  the  same  press 
in  1 517,  having  been  finished  in  1506.  In  contrast  to  its 
title  this  poem,  which  is  dedicated  to  Henry  VII.,  is  a 
moral  and  learned  allegory,  in  which  the  seven  sciences 
and  a  host  of  virtues  are  personified,  something  in 
Bunyan's  manner,  though  without  his  raciness.  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  time  that  Hawes's  '  Pilgrim '  chooses 
the  way  of  active  rather  than  of  contemplative  life,  while 
he  also  equips  himself  with  all  known  sciences  as  the 
right  preparation  for  a  chivalrous  career,  especially  with 
that  lore  of  the  stars  '  in  which  God  himself  is  chief 
astronomer.'  For  it  is  precisely  this  mixture  of  learning 
with  energetic  action  which  made  the  best  men  of  the 
period  what  they  were. 

A  few  shorter  poems  belong  to  this  time,  and  were 
more  influential  by  far  than  anything  in  Barklay  or 
Hawes.  Among  these  was  the  ballad  of  the  '  Nut-brown 
Maid,'  which  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  1502  in 
Arnold's  book  on  London  customs.  '  A  Lytel  Geste 
of  Robin  Hood '  was  published  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde 
in    1489,   and   established    on    a   firm   basis    the    repu- 


-1 509  Literature  of  the  Time.  93 

tation  of  this  popular  hero,  ever  ready  to  support  the 
weak  against  the  strong.  Above  all  should  it  be  remarked 
that  the  oldest  known  copy  of  the  noble  '  Chevy  Chase ' 
is  thought  to  date  from  the  year  1500,  and  is  self-evi- 
dently  much  nearer  the  original  than  the  later  forms  of 
the  ballad. 

The  native  prose  works  most  honourable  to  England  at 
this  time  are,  of  course,  those  of  Sir  Thomas  More  ;  whose 
style  has  indeed  the  fault  (common  to  him 
with  Erasmus)  of  inordinately  long  para-  period" 
graphs,  yet  leaves  little  to  be  desired  in  the  way  ^^fo  ia  • 
of  clearness.  His'  History  of  Edward  V.' was 
written  about  1506  (though  not  published  till  1513).  It  is 
in  the  classical  style,  with  speeches  for  the  principal  char- 
acters. But  his  reputation  will  always  rest  on  his  '  Utopia,' 
published  in  its  Latin  form  in  1515.  Indeed,  this  deserves 
to  rank  as  a  masterpiece  beside  the  works  of  Philippe 
de  Commines  and  of  More's  contemporary  Macchiavelli, 
but  far  beyond  either  in  right-mindedness  and  reforming 
enthusiasm.  Its  arguments  are  supposed  to  be  those  of 
a  companion  of  the  traveller  Amerigo  Vespucci,  named 
Raphael  Hythloday,  who  has  discovered  and  describes  at 
Cardinal  Morton's  table  the  notable  island  of  '  Nowhere,* 
whose  inhabitants  are  models  of  practical  wisdom. 
Strong  in  the  experience  thence  derived,  the  travelled 
man  finds  fault  with  many  things  in  England.  A  good 
specimen  of  his  charges  against  our  institutions  is  his 
declaration  that  in  other  countries  of  Europe  there  is 
trouble  from  disbanded  soldiers  who  like  robbery  better 
than  work,  but  that  English  thieves  are  not  gener- 
ally soldiers.  The  high  price  of  wool  tempts  landlords  to 
throw  into  large  walks  for  sheep,  inhabited  only  by  the 
shepherd  and  his  dog,  those  estates  which  had  maintained 
many  small  farm-houses ;  thus  the  old  tenants  are  driven 


94  The  Early  Tudor s.  1485- 

away,  and  when  their  small  means  are  spent,  they  can 
but  steal  and  be  hanged  for  it.  We  shall  see  in  a  subse- 
quent chapter  that  the  English  Parliament  had  already 
made  one  law  to  remedy  this  state  of  things,  and  was  to 
make  many  more  ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  country 
benefited  much  by  the  changes  thus  introduced. 

In  this  and  many  other  ways  the  rule  of  common  sense 
had  now  begun  in  England,  and  found  support  and  en- 
couragement in   more  than  one  influential 
Morton  and       quarter.    Cardinal  Morton  cast  his  weight  into 
Relbrm.  ^his  scale ;  indeed,  his  life  had  been  so  full  of 

accident  and  change,  that  it  would  have  been 
strange  if  he  had  not  had  a  practical  turn.  Narrowly 
escaping  from  the  rout  of  Towton  in  1461,  he  had 
weathered — Lancastrian  as  he  was — the  dangerous  reigns 
of  Edward  IV.  and  Richard  III. ;  his  persuasive  power 
had  induced  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  to  rebel  in  1483, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  warned  Henry  Tudor  of 
Landois's  plots  against  him.  After  Bosworth  Field  his 
attainder  was  reversed,  and  in  March  i486  he  became 
Chancellor  of  England.  A  few  days  after  this  Archbishop 
Bouchier  died,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  Morton  was  to 
succeed  him.  If  the  new  Archbishop  could  have  simply 
followed  his  own  tendencies,  reform  in  the  Church  might 
have  gone  far  in  his  hands.  As  it  was,  he  was  over- 
anxious to  conciliate  the  Popes  of  his  time,  and  thus  to 
obtain  their  help  in  establishing  the  despotic  power  of 
the  Crown.  The  consequence  was  that  his  reforms, 
though  in  the  right  direction,  were  far  less  vigorous  than 
they  should  have  been.  He  insisted  that  all  rectors 
should  reside  in  their  benefices,  and  in  each  benefice  in 
turn  if  they  were  pluralists ;  and  procured  an  Act  of  Par- 
liament to  punish  '  incontinent '  clergy,  that  is,  those  who 
lived  in  quasi-marriage.     With  a  naive  reliance  on  the 


-1509  Cardinal  Morion.  95 

effect  of  strictness  in  externals,  he  expresses  great  dismay 
at  the  clergy  having  given  up  the  tonsure  and  the  clerical 
dress  ;  insists  that  they  shall  be  shorn  so  as  to  show  their 
ears  and  wear  coats  '  clausas  a  parte  anteriori ' ;  that  only 
graduates  of  the  university  shall  have  fur  on  their  gar- 
ments, and  that  no  swords  or  daggers  shall  be  carried  by 
priests.  As  to  the  monasteries,  which  required  even 
more  correction,  though  he  procured  from  Pope  Innocent 
VIII.  a  bill  authorising  him  to  carry  out  reforms  there, 
he  still  exercised  this  power  with  preposterous  lenity,  as 
the  celebrated  case  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Albans  is  enough 
to  show.  Here  the  Abbot  was  charged  with  offences 
enough  to  fill  a  '  chronique  scandaleuse ' ;  in  particular 
with  promoting  ladies  to  high  conventual  offices  for 
reasons  as  opposite  as  possible  to  those  which  should 
have  guided  his  choice.  Yet  this  libertine  was  not  de- 
graded from  his  post  of  responsibility ;  it  was  held 
sufficient  to  warn  him  that  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict  must 
be  restored  at  St.  Albans  within  thirty  days  under  pain  of 
severer  animadversion.  Probably  the  moral  and  religious 
effect  of  the  Cardinal's  visitations  would  have  been  greater 
if  he  had  not  sometimes  been  attended  by  Royal  Com- 
missioners for  the  purpose  of  raising  benevolences;  whose 
zeal  he  was  unlikely,  as  we  have  already  seen,  to  think 
of  mitigating.  In  his  judgments  as  Chancellor  he  occa- 
sionally carried  the  notion  of  common  sense  and  equity 
somewhat  beyond  the  ideas  of  Westminster  Hall ;  now 
and  then  maintaining  that  what  the  law  of  God  ordains 
must  be  the  law  of  England,  and  still  more  extra-legally 
threatening  a  dishonest  executor  '  qu'il  serait  dampne  en 
helle.' 

At  any  rate,  no  reserve,  no  love  of  despotism  or  fear  of 
touching  abuses  in  Church  or  State,  hindered  Erasmus 
from  the  loudest  and  most  unmistakable  remonstrances 


96  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

against  religious  corruption.  The  superstitions  connected 
with  pilgrimages,  relics,  and  alleged  miracles 
^irrCli'age"  appeared  to  him  in  a  very  different  light 
from  that  in  which  even  Sir  Thomas  More 
viewed  them  at  a  later  time,  when  he  maintained  that 
no  one  who  had  the  ordinary  intelligence  required  for 
a  juryman  could  doubt  the  working  of  miracles  at  the 
great  centres  of  devotion.  By  way  of  sapping  such  beliefs 
at  their  base,  Erasmus  wrote  his  celebrated  '  Colloquy  on 
Pilgrimages  ; '  in  which,  with  ultra-Aristophanic  humour, 
he  makes  the  saints  in  heaven  address  a  letter  to  Luther, 
thanking  him  for  teaching  that  they  are  not  to  be  invoked, 
and  thus  freeing  them  from  a  thousand  importunities.  He 
then  goes  on  quaintly  to  describe  the  old-fashioned 
Ogygius  making  toilsome  expeditions  to  Compostella  and 
elsewhere,  '  to  fulfil  a  vow  made  by  his  mother-in-law  '  in 
view  of  a  happy  event  m  his  family.  Next  he  tells  of  the 
little  postern  at  the  Abbey  of  Walsingham  to  which  a 
knight  once  fled,  but  finding  it  shut,  prayed  to  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  was  instantly  on  the  other  side  of  it,  horse  and 
all ;  and  of  the  authentic  tablet  guaranteeing  the  genuine- 
ness of  all  the  relics  in  the  place,  but  put  up  much  too  high 
to  be  read.  The  '  Colloquy  '  proceeds  to  describe  a  visit 
to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  at  Canterbury,  which  the 
author  made  in  company  with  Dean  Colet.  As  the  friends 
brought  a  recommendation  from  Archbishop  Warham, 
they  could  ask  a  few  sceptical  questions  with  less  danger 
of  being  considered  sacrilegious  heretics  than  they  would 
have  incurred  elsewhere.  Erasmus  describes  the  beauty 
of  the  two  towers,  which  seem  to  salute  pilgrims  from 
afar  ;  the  sculptured  figures  of  Becket's  murderers  (who, 
he  says,  are  locally  called  Tuscus,  Fuscus,  and  Berrius) ; 
the  apocryphal  gospel  of  Nicodemus  fastened  to  one  of 
the  pillars  ;  the  disgusting  relics  which  they  had  to  kiss, 


-1509  Erasmus  as  a  Reformer.  97 

till  Colet's  patience  failed  him  at  the  sight  of  an  arm  to 
which  the  flesh  was  still  adhering.  Presently  Colet  began 
questioning  the  sacristan.  'Was  not  St.  Thomas  in  his 
lifetime  a  very  charitable  person?'  'Certainly.'  'And 
whatever  virtues  he  had  in  this  world,  ought  we  not  to 
suppose  that  he  now  has  the  same  in  a  much  higher  de- 
gree ? '  'Of  course.'  '  Well  then,  if  he  was  as  liberal  as 
you  say  towards  the  poor,  may  I  ask  your  opinion  on  this 
point  ?  Suppose  he  saw  a  poor  widow  with  starving 
children,  or  with  daughters  whose  modesty  is  in  danger 
because  they  cannot  be  married  for  want  of  a  dowry,  do 
you  not  think  that  he  might  perhaps  wish  some  of  the 
immense  mass  of  wealth  collected  in  his  shrine  to 
be  expended  for  the  relief  of  such  necessities  ? '  To  this 
sacrilegious  question  no  answer  was  made  except  looks 
of  horror ;  and  the  friends  were  handed  over  to  the 
guidance  of  the  Prior  himself,  who  showed  them  first  the 
jewels  sent  by  various  crowned  heads  to  the  shrine,  and 
then  some  personal  relics  of  the  saint  of  a  kind  perhaps 
hardly  describable.  Here  Colet's  disgust  became  so 
manifest,  that  the  Prior  thought  it  better  to  change  the 
current  of  his  reflections  by  ordering  some  wine  for  the 
highly-recommended  visitors.  It  certainly  is  a  striking 
proof  of  the  respect  for  learning  in  these  times  that  Erasmus 
should  have  been  able  with  impunity  to  write  such  scath- 
ing satires  on  the  practices  of  the  Church.  Had  he  not 
been  the  best  Latin  scholar  in  the  world,  he  would  not 
have  dared  on  other  occasions  to  treat  the  notion  of 
Indulgences  for  forty  days  as  an  absurdity,  on  the  ground 
that  there  are  no  days  and  nights  in  the  other  world,  or 
to  fling  continued  charges  of  immorality  at  the  monastic 
bodies,  or  to  declare  that  the  man  who  looks  after  his 
workmen  and  cares  for  the  welfare  of  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters is  doing  better  than  if  he  visited  all  the  '  stations '  at 


98  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

Rome  and  made  a  prayer  at  each.  And  when  we  con- 
sider the  immense  popularity  of  his  works,  we  see  clearly 
how  much  doubt  as  to  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  the 
Church  must  have  lived  on  from  Lollard  days,  to  gain 
force  and  cohesion  from  the  utterances  of  his  genius. 
Had  he  done  no  more  than  to  give  this  doubt  words, 
his  work  would  have  still  been  important.  As  it  was,  it 
rose  much  higher,  and  tended  to  simplify  and  ennoble 
religion  far  beyond  what  his  contemporaries  could  con- 
ceive as  possible.  For  he  deprecated  the  practice  of 
developing  doctrines  into  all  their  logical  consequences 
and  thus  turning  religion  into  dogma  ;  he  explained 
Christian  faith  as  one  with  the  Christian  life  in  a  way 
which  Luther  would  have  thought  half  heathen  ;  and  he 
was  by  no  means  anxious  for  rapid  and  violent  reforms, 
believing  as  he  did  that  false  notions  of  religion  would  be 
more  wholesomely  corrected  by  the  slow  advance  of 
sound  knowledge.  '  The  Reformation  that  has  been,' 
says  an  eminent  writer,  '  is  Luther's  monument ;  perhaps 
the  Reformation  that  is  to  be  will  trace  itself  back  to 
Erasmus.' 

This  chapter  may  properly  end  by  noticing  the  archi- 
tecture of  Henry  VH.'s  reign.  The  time  produced  several 
great  constructors.  Cardinal  Morton  nearly  rebuilt  his 
residences  at  Maidstone,  Addington,  and  Charing,  as 
well  as  what  is  now  the  old  part  of  Hatfield  House. 
„  .    .         .      His  arms  appear  several  times  on  the  fine 

Buildings  ,.,,t-   i  t     r^t  i  i  •    i     i 

&c.  of  the  tower  of  Wisbeach  Church,  which  he  proba- 

*'*^"°  ■  bly  restored.     He  promoted  the  building  of 

Rochester  Bridge,  obtaining  for  this  and  for  other  works 
which  he  was  executing  the  power  of  impressing  stone- 
masons ;  and  also  proclaiming  that  those  who  gave  money 
for  it  should  have  forty  days'  remission  of  Purgatory.  At 
Oxford  he  contributed  to  the  restoration  of  the  Divinity 


-1 509  Buildings  of  the  Period.  99 

School  and  of  St.  Mary's  Church.  At  Canterbury  the 
building  of  the  '  Angel  Steeple '  is  ascribed  to  him. 
While  Bishop  of  Ely,  Morton  had  also  distinguished  him- 
self as  an  engineer  by  executing  the  great  cut  or  drain 
through  the  fens  from  Wisbeach  to  Peterborough  which 
is  still  called  '  Morton's  Leame.'  The  people  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  these  towns  had  complained  that  the 
river  Nene  and  the  ancient  works  connected  with  it  were 
no  longer  able  to  carry  the  fen  waters  to  the  sea,  and  that 
after  rain  the  flood  destroyed  its  banks  and  drowned  the 
fields.  The  Bishop,  having  long  lived  in  the  Nether- 
lands, had  thoroughly  observed  the  management  of 
waters  there,  and  had  no  need  to  call  in  Dutch  profes- 
sional men — in  fact,  the  Leame  was  executed  under  his 
own  superintendence,  and  it  justified  his  claim  to  be  called 
the  '  earliest  of  modern  engineers  '  in  England  by  at  once 
bringing  more  than  4,000  acres  into  cultivation,  and  by 
serving  up  to  the  year  1725  as  the  great  outlet  to  the  river. 
Henry  VII.  himself  left  several  stately  monuments  of 
his  reign.  One  of  these  was  the  Palace  of  Sheen,  a  small 
fragment  of  which  still  remains  at  Richmond  in  Surrey. 
It  contained  a  noble  hall  one  hundred  feet  long  by  forty 
wide  ;  and  its  very  appearance,  with  its  numerous  towers 
and  fronts  all  pierced  with  large  windows,  must  have  told 
clearly  of  a  positive  delight  in  the  feeling  that  security 
was  at  length  established — '  fair  houses,'  says  Lord  Bacon, 
'  being  so  full  of  glass  that  one  cannot  tell  where  to  come 
to  be  out  of  the  sun  or  cold.'  An  important  feature  of 
this  building  was  that,  besides  the  great  hall,  it  contained 
a  private  dining-room  for  the  King,  and  another  for  the 
Queen.  This  was  a  new  and  growing  fashion  ;  in  large 
mansions  of  this  period  the  lord's  dining-room  was  often 
separated  by  a  partition  from  the  hall,  or  in  some  cases 
built  over  it ;  in  smaller  houses  the  hall  was  dispensed 


loo  The  Early  Tudors.  1485- 

with  altogether.  The  change  was  not  made  without  ad- 
monitions against  it  from  high  quarters ;  even  down  to 
Ehzabeth's  time  government  used  every  now  and  then 
to  renew  Grostete's  old  exhortation,  which  said, '  As  much 
as  ye  can  without  peril  of  sickness  or  weariness,  eat  ye 
in  the  hall  before  your  meyny ;  for  that  shall  be  for 
your  profit  and  worship.'  Now,  however,  nobles  and 
gentry  were  getting  too  fastidious  for  this,  '  much  de- 
lighting and  using  to  dine  in  corners  and  secret  places ;' 
such  retreats  also  contributed  much  to  the  growth  of 
luxury  by  being  furnished  better  than  rooms  were  in 
earlier  times,  and  more  after  the  fashion  long  established 
in  the  Netherlands. 

Henry  VII. 's  Chapel  in  Westminster  Abbey  is  the  chief 
ecclesiastical  monument  of  the  period.  It  was  built  under 
the  King's  personal  superintendence,  the  first  stone  being 
laid  in  1503.  His  intention  was  to  honour  the  burial- 
place  of  his  ancestress  Katherine  of  France  and  of 
Henry  VI.,  and  also  to  provide  a  splendid  tomb  in 
it  for  himself  and  Elizabeth.  Externally  the  chapel  is  re- 
markable for  the  beauty  of  its  octagonal  turret-buttresses, 
and  of  the  carved  flying  buttresses  which  pass  from  them 
to  support  the  clerestory.  Every  stone  in  the  building, 
except  those  of  the  few  lowest  courses,  is  profusely 
ornamented  either  with  foliage  of  great  beauty  or  with 
heraldic  devices.  The  roof  within  is  a  magnificent  speci- 
men of  the  later  English  fan-tracery  vaulting ;  many  of 
the  fans  form  unsupported  pendants  from  the  roof,  and  the 
whole  is  most  richly  ornamented.  This  kind  of  work  has 
been  sometimes  spoken  of  as  '  debased  '  by  its  fondness 
for  superfluous  ornament ;  it  is  therefore  satisfactory  to  find 
that  it  has  been  most  heartily  admired  by  Viollet  le  Due, 
the  chief  of  modern  French  architects,  who  considers  it 
both  richer  and  more  scientific  than  any  kind  of  vaulting 


-1509     Peaceftd  Beginnings  of  the  tiew  Reign.  loi 

known  to  the  builders  of  his  own  country.  To  the  right 
of  the  south  aisle  stands  the  magnificent  tomb  of  Henry 
and  Elizabeth,  the  work  of  the  celebrated  Pietro  Torre- 
giano  ;  and  also  that  of  the  Lady  Margaret.  Here  Henry 
ordered  that  prayers  for  his  soul  and  for  the  remission 
of  his  sins  should  go  on  '  as  long  as  the  world  lasted.' 
To  ensure  their  maintenance,  he  gave  the  Dean  more 
than  5,000/.  for  the  purchase  of  manors,  besides  advowsons 
producing  more  than  450/.  a  year ;  the  uses,  however,  to 
which  this  income  was  to  be  applied  were  so  strictly  de- 
fined as  not  to  leave  much  margin  of  profit.  The  new 
building  was  on  the  site  of  the  old  Lady-chapel ;  besides 
which,  the  ground  was  cleared  of  St.  Erasmus  Chapel  (the 
work  of  Elizabeth  Wydvile),  of  a  tavern  called  the  '  White 
Rose,'  and  probably  of  a  house  once  inhabited  by  the 
poet  Chaucer.  The  stone,  like  that  of  the  modern  houses 
of  Parliament,  was  brought  from  Yorkshire  at  great 
expense  ;  yet  it  did  not  justify  the  selection,  as,  unlike 
that  of  some  great  mediseval  cathedrals,  which  is  as  fresh 
now  as  when  put  up,  it  required  to  be  renewed  after  about 
300  years. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

THE   PEACEFUL  BEGINNINGS   OF  THE   NEW   REIGN. 
1509-151I. 

With  the  accession  of  Henry  VIIL  new  prospects  began 
for  England.      The   country,  which   had  been   scantly 
grateful  for  the  economy  and  homely  ways 
by  which  the  late  King  had  gone  far  to  repair      fond  of  the 
the  waste   of   the   Civil   Wars,   now   felt  a       "^^^' 
bounding  joy  at  seeing  its  own  mental   power,  hearti- 


102  77/1?  Early  Tudors.  1509 

ncss,  bravery,  and  niagnificence  visibly  presented  in  the 
person  of  an  eighteen-years-old  sovereign.  What  a 
change  from  the  timorous  invalid  Whom  they  had  just  lost 
to  the  splendid  youth  now  before  them,  with  his  glowing 
complexion  and  short-cropped  golden  hair,  whose  beauty 
grave  ambassadors  described  in  their  despatches  home, 
who  could  speak  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish,  played 
and  sang  to  admiration,  and  composed  music  which  a 
high  authority  describes  as  '  not  too  clear  or  masterly 
to  have  been  really  the  work  of  a  royal  dilettante  ! '  And 
this  accomplished  person  could  also  overthrow  knight 
after  knight  in  the  lists,  and  tire  out  half-a-dozen  '  second 
horses '  carefully  stationed  for  him  along  the  probable  line 
of  the  hunt ;  he  also  liked  well  to  stake  his  hundreds  like 
a  man  at  the  gaming-table,  and  his  bonhomie  was  such 
that  he  would  on  great  holidays  every  now  and  then  en- 
courage the  lieges  to  scramble  for  the  ornaments  on 
his  own  dress  and  that  of  his  courtiers.  It  seemed  little 
that  he  had  not  been  trained  in  political  or  economic 
knowledge:  this  would  come  in  time,  and  mean- 
while he  was  not  worse  off  than  many  of  his  brother 
sovereigns.  For  the  master  interests  of  the  period  he 
might  probably  do  much  ;  the  classicists  might  expect 
everything  from  one  who  at  nine  years  old  had  written 
good  Latin  uncorrected  by  tutors,  the  Church  re- 
formers from  a  prince  with  so  strong  a  turn  for  theology. 
Was  there  danger  that  the  fatal  passion  for  war  and 
glory  might  some  time  engross  his  mind  and  overthrow 
all  this  fair  promise  ?  This  was  of  course  possible :  yet 
so  far  as  the  beginnings  of  such  feeling  could  yet  be  dis- 
cerned, it  took  the  form  which  has  always  been  most 
justly  popular  in  England,  that  of  naval  rather  than 
military  enterprise.  Instead  of  schemes  for  reconquering 
the  French  dominion  lost  by  Henry  VI.,  and  thus  letting 


1509       Peaceful  Beginnings  of  the  new  Reign.         103 

loose  among  his  people  the  frantic  passion  for  plunder 
which  would  be  the  bane  of  industry,  he  was  mainly- 
bent  on  making  his  fleet  effective  for  the  defence  of 
his  own  shores.  He  would  himself  show  foreigners 
over  the  '  Great  Harry,'  his  new  and  magnificent  man- 
of-war,  with  her  seven  tiers  of  guns  one  over  another. 
His  admirals  never  feared  that  he  would  weary  over  the 
details  in  their  letters — how  'for  the  whole  of  Palm 
Sunday  we  stirred  not,  for  the  wind  was  E  by  S,  which 
was  the  course  we  should  draw  ;  but  on  Monday  it  came 
W.S.W.,  which  was  very  good  for  us,  and  that  night  we 
slept  it  not,  for  at  the  beginning  of  the  flood  we  were  all 
under  sail,  when  the  Katherine  Fortaliza  sailed  very  well. 
Your  good  ship  the  Sovereign  is  the  flower  of  all  vessels 
that  ever  sailed.  My  letter  is  long,  but  your  High- 
ness did  command  me  to  send  word  how  every  ship 
worked.'  When  the  days  of  war  began,  the  same  writer, 
Lord  Edward  Howard,  tells  his  master,  with  the  cheer- 
fulness of  a  Nelson  or  Colling^vood,  that  he  'expects  a 
fight  within  five  or  six  days,  as  he  hears  that  a  hundred 
sail  are  coming  towards  them  ; '  or  bids  him  by  no  means 
doubt  that  'the  first  wind  that  ever  cometh,  the  enemy 
shall  have  broken  heads  that  all  the  world  shall  hear  of  it.' 
Thus  protected,  England  could  have  nothing  to  fear  from 
without,  and  might  therefore  have  continued  to  isolate 
herself,  without  loss  or  damage  of  any  kind,  from  the  im- 
broglios of  foreign  politics,  with  quite  sufficient  occupa- 
tion for  all  her  energies  in  the  problems  of  internal  gov- 
ernment and  the  enterprises  which  belong  to  peace. 
Even  before  Henry  VII.  was  buried,  his       ^ 

•^  Execution 

tyrannical    ministers    Empson    and    Dudley      of  Empson 
were  dealt  with  much  as  Olivier  le  Dain  had      ^"      "   "^^^ 
been  on  the  accession  of  Charles  VIII.  of  France.     In 
order  to  hinder  their  being  included  in  the  general  pardon 


I04  The  Early  Tudors.  1509 

at  the  accession,  they  were  summoned  to  appear  before 
the  Privy  Council,  and  articles  were  at  once  prepared 
against  them  stating  in  general  terms  the  financial 
oppressions  of  which  they  had  been  guilty.  Their  plea 
of  having  acted  according  to  existing  laws  was  summarily 
put  aside  on  the  ground  that  they  had  misapplied  the 
laws  to  which  they  appealed.  While  in  the  Tower  they 
were  farther  accused  of  having  plotted  to  seize  and  put 
to  death  the  young  King  immediately  on  his  father's 
decease.  It  was  on  this  charge,  for  which  no  evidence 
exists,  and  which  appears  simply  incredible,  that  Dudley 
was  tried  and  condemned  at  the  Guildhall  and  Empson 
at  Northampton.  Both  remained  in  prison  till  August 
1 5 10,  when  a  report  that  Katherine  was  interceding  for 
them  produced  a  shower  of  petitions  that  they  might  be 
executed.  This  Henry  therefore  ordered,  acting,  as  Lord 
Bacon  says,  '  more  like  a  good  king  than  a  good  master.' 
Several  of  their  inferior  agents  were  either  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  mob,  or  first  pilloried  in  Cornhill  and  then  thrown 
into  Newgate  to  die  of  harsh  treatment.  We  are  told  by 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  that  Dudley  sent  a  request  to 
the  Privy  Council  that  '  my  indictment  may  be  entered  on 
no  record,  nor  divulged  to  foreign  nations,  lest  if  they 
hear  in  my  condemnation  all  that  may  argue  a  final  dis- 
solution in  government,  they  invade  and  overcome  you.' 
Such  a  mode  of  pleading  was  not  likely  to  mollify  Henry, 
yet  Dudley's  attainder  was  reversed  some  years  after  his 
death,  and  his  family  afterwards  rose,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
the  highest  rank  and  importance. 

Thus  sternly  was  one  great  keynote  of  the 
wkh"^^''  reign  struck  at  its  very  outset;  on  June  7, 

^f^Ara'on         1509,  took  place  Henry's  long-delayed  wed- 
ding with  his  sister-in-law,  in  virtue  of  the 
dispensation  obtained  from  Pope  Julius  II.  in  1503.    Mar- 


1509       Peaceful  Beginnings  of  the  new  Reign.  105 

riages  between  persons  thus  related  were  so  completely 
understood  to  be  forbidden  by  the  actual  words  of  the 
Bible,  that  under  ordinary  circumstances  it  would  have 
been  held  that  even  the  Pope  would  not  grant  dispensa- 
tion for  it.  It  had,  however,  been  declared  that  Kath- 
erinehadbeen  Arthur's  wife  only  in  name;  and,  asavisible 
symbol  of  this,  Katherine  was  now  married  with  her  hair 
loose,  after  the  fashion  of  virgin  brides.  The  Privy 
Council,  with  the  exception  of  Warham,  were  strongly 
in  favour  of  the  marriage,  such  objections  as  were  raised 
having  been  answered  by  King  Ferdinand's  argument 
that  the  King  of  Portugal  had  married  two  sisters  suc- 
cessively without  bringing  on  himself  any  mark  of  divine 
anger.  On  her  wedding  day  Katherine  again  signed 
away  her  dowry  of  200,000  crowns  (the  difficulty  of 
repaying  which  had  been  one  of  the  arguments  for  the 
original  dispensation),  receiving  in  exchange  for  it  lands 
and  rents  at  Bristol,  Bedford,  Norwich,  Ipswich,  and 
about  150  other  towns  and  parishes,  with  the  right  of 
receiving  felons'  goods,  fines,  waifs  and  strays,  and  treas- 
ure-trove on  all  manors  granted  her. 

On  June  20  Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond  and  Derby 
died,  full  of  years  and  honours,  in  the  precincts  of  West- 
minster Abbey ;  one  of  her  last  public  acts  was  advising 
her  grandson  in  his  choice  of  privy-councillors.  Of  her 
two  foundations  at  Cambridge  already  mentioned,  she 
left  Christ's  College  complete  ;  St.  John's  was  ^^^^^  ^^^^^ 
erected  some  years  later  according  to  her  Lady 
plans.  A  small  but  graceful  memorial  of  her  ''"•g^''^  • 
taste  still  remains  in  the  little  Gothic  canopy  over  St. 
Winifred's  spring  at  Holywell  in  Flintshire,  which  is  even 
now  a  place  of  Roman  Catholic  pilgrimage.  Her  divinity 
professorships  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  continue  to  bear 
her  name  ;  yet  her  chief  and  best  memorial  will  always 


lo6  The  Early  Tudors.  1510 

be  the  record  of  her  simphcity  and  nobleness,  of  the 
care  she  took  that  justice  should  be  done  to  all  her 
dependents,  of  her  patronage  of  all  kinds  of  learning, 
and  of  her  deep  and  humble-minded  affection  to  her  son 
as  King.  'To  all  the  learned  men  of  England,'  says 
Bishop  Fisher  in  her  funeral  sermon,  '  she  was  a  mother ; 
to  all  virtuous  and  devout  persons  a  loving  sister ;  and  to 
all  the  common  people  of  the  realm  she  was  in  their 
causes  a  common  mediatrice,  and  took  right  great  dis- 
pleasure for  them.'  The  dream  of  her  life  had  been  a 
Crusade  against  the  all-conquering  Turks,  in  which  she 
would  have  been  content  to  join  the  defenders  of  the 
truth,  and  'to  help  them  by  washing  of  their  clothes.* 
This  may  be  considered  one  of  the  last  flashes  of  the 
genuine  crusading  spirit  in  England :  henceforward  our 
kings,  though  they  did  not,  like  those  of  France,  ally 
themselves  with  the  Porte,  were  not  inclined  to  do  more 
for  Christianity  in  the  East  than  was  implied  in  a  casual 
present  to  the  monks  of  Mount  Athos  or  an  aid  towards 
the  redemption  of  illustrious  prisoners  at  Constantinople. 
Henry's  government  at  this  time  was  not  less  deter- 
mined than  his  father's  in  preserving  order  at  home,  and 

repressing  according  to  its  lights  some  of  the 
Disciplinary       ^^j^^  influences  against  it.  The  Star  Chamber 

was  encouraged  by  him  to  strike  at  even  the 
first  nobles  in  the  land:  in  15 10  we  find  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  in  spite  of  his  royal  blood,  pleading  in  vain 
before  it  for  restoration  to  the  office  of  High  Constable. 
Men  of  less  quality  were  heavily  fined  for  taking  part  in 
riots,  as  were  also  juries  who  acquitted  them  on  such  charges 
contrary  to  the  evidence.  Indeed  the  procedure  in  this  court 
had  now  become  so  peremptory,  that  men  of  rank  who 
knew  themselves  innocent  still  sometimes  found  it  safer 
to  submit  and  pray  for  pardon.     As  a  farther  effort  in 


1 51 1       Peaceful  Beginnings  of  the  new  Reign.  107 

behalf  of  public  morality,  the  growing  passion  for  games  of 
chance  was  opposed  in  151 1  by  a  tolerably  strict  statute, 
which  reserved  the  pernicious  pleasure  of  gambling  for 
gentlemen  only,  the  commons  being  forbidden  to  play  at 
dice  or  cards,  and  even  at  tennis  or  bowls,  except  at 
Christmas  and  under  the  eye  of  their  superiors.  When  this 
law  was  re-enacted  and  completed  in  1542,  it  gave  power  to 
justices  to  make  raids  on  gambling-houses  and  imprison 
their  proprietors;  it  has  remained  in  force  till  our  own 
time,  and  recently  enabled  the  police  to  break  up  the '  hells ' 
in  St.  James  Street.  Even  ball-play  in  public  places  was 
prohibited  by  the  earlier  statute;  this  appears  to  have 
been  a  stroke  aimed  at  the  London  apprentices  and  their 
games  in  Cheapside,  alarming  to  staid  citizens  (the 
rudeness  of  which  may  have  given  the  sting  to  Shake- 
speare's epithet,  'base  foot-ball  player').  As  a  substitute 
for  such  games,  archery  was  to  be  zealously  pursued, 
every  man  or  boy  between  the  age  of  seven  and 
sixty  being  bound  to  practice  the  longbow,  with  its  for- 
midable range  of  220  yards  (which  the  law  did  not  allow 
to  be  diminished),  and  to  discard  all  such  new-fangled 
weapons  as  crossbows  and  hand-guns.  Archery,  in  fact, 
was  considered  to  supply  just  the  mixture  of  exertion, 
courage,  and  intelligence  which  was  good  for  Englishmen. 
It  was  also,  as  Ascham  maintained  a  few  years  later,  the 
kind  of  exercise  most  profitable  for  scholars ;  and  all  the 
more  so,  as  he  quaintly  says,  '  because  it  was  invented 
by  Apollo  the  god  of  learning,  whereas  dice  and  such 
games  were  brought  in  by  an  ungracious  god  called 
Theuth,  which  for  his  naughtiness  came  never  into  other 
gods'  company,  so  that  Homer  doth  despise  once  to 
mention  him  in  all  his  works.' 

The  subject  of  'benefit  of  clergy'  was  now  resumed, 
and  with  a  clearer  insight  than  in  the  preceding  reign. 


lo8  The  Early  Tudors.  151 1 

It  was  seen  not  only  that  the  power  of  reading  a  verse 
Ar  ument  ^'^""^  ^^   Latin  psahns  (and  thus   proving 

on  Church  clerkly  learning)  ought  not  to  free  men  from 
privi  eges.  ^^  penalties  of  their  crimes,  but  that  even 
ordained  priests  ought  to  have  no  exemption.  Seeing 
Church  rules  thus  assailed,  Bishops  not  only  adhered 
strongly  to  the  law  as  it  was,  but  even  ventured  on 
a  prosecution  of  Dr.  Standish  who  was  advising  change ; 
this,  however,  they  had  to  drop  upon  a  threat  oi  prce- 
jnutiire.  On  the  general  question  they  argued  that  our 
Lord  himself  had  said  '  nolite  tangere  Christos  meos  ' — 
an  unfortunate  quotation  which  laid  them  open  to  the 
retort  that  these  words  were  spoken,  not  by  our  Lord, 
but  by  David  more  than  1,000  years  before  his  time, 
and  moreover  that  the  '  anointed '  of  the  Psalm  meant 
all  true  believers  and  not  exclusively  the  clergy.  In 
spite,  however,  of  this  foil  in  reasoning,  the  clergy  were 
for  the  time  successful ;  a  temporary  Act  upon  the  sub- 
ject was  allowed  to  expire,  and  it  was  only  after  Henry's 
breach  with  the  Pope  that  the  Parliament  ventured  again 
to  abridge  these  particular  privileges  of  the  Church. 

By  a  remarkable  coincidence  the  throne  of  Scotland 
was  now  occupied  by  a  brother-in-law  who  had  the  same 

James  IV.  "^^^^  *-^^^^^  ^^  Henry  himself.  James  IV., 
of  Scotland.  the  husband  of  Margaret  Tudor,  had  built 
Bartons.  Under  his  personal  superintendence  a  vessel 

called  the  '  Michael,'  which  was  a  worthy  rival 
of  the  largest  ships  in  the  English  navy.  She  was  240  feet 
long  ;  her  hull  of  solid  oak  was  ten  feet  thick,  so  that  the 
artillery  of  the  time  had  no  effect  upon  her ;  and  she  car- 
ried nearly  1,500  men.  Yet  she  never  did  any  such  ex- 
ploits as  those  of  the  smaller  vessels  commanded  by 
Sir  Andrew  Wood  of  Largs  and  the  Bartons.  Sir 
Andrew,   with    the    '  Caravel '   and    the    '  Flower,'    sue- 


151 1       Peacejul  Begin7tings  of  the  new  Reign.  log 

ceeded  in  bringing  into  Leith  five  English  pirate  ships ; 
when  Stephen  Bull,  a  celebrated  English  seaman,  was 
sent  to  encounter  him,  he  carried  on  a  running  fight  from 
the  Forth  to  the  Tay,  and  at  last  took  the  Englishman 
into  Dundee.  The  other  great  naval  captain,  Andrew 
Barton,  had  been  aggrieved  by  the  Portuguese  govern- 
ment, and  held  a  letter  of  reprisal  from  James  III. 
against  them ;  after  a  while  he  began  to  extend  his 
violences  to  English  vessels  also.  On  this  the  Earl  of 
Surrey  declared  in  15 12  that  the  narrow  seas  should  not  be 
so  infested  while  he  had  estate  enough  to  furnish  a  ship, 
or  a  son  to  command  her ;  and  no  less  a  person  than  Sir 
Edward  Howard,  the  Lord  Admiral,  took  charge  of  the  ves- 
sels he  prepared.  Sir  Thomas,  the  admiral's  elder  brother, 
who  was  serving  under  him,  parted  company  in  a  storm, 
and  came  up  alone  with  Andrew  Barton  in  the  '  Lion  ;'  a 
desperate  engagement  ensued,  Barton  cheering  his  men  to 
his  last  breath,  and  they  refusing  to  submit  as  long  as  he 
lived.  Meanwhile  Sir  Edward  himself  had  taken  the  sister 
vessel,  and  all  who  remained  alive  of  the  crews  were  carried 
to  London  as  prisoners.  Yet  they  were  afterwards  allowed 
to  return  to  Scotland — a  plain  proof  that  they  were  not 
considered  as  absolutely  foes  to  mankind,  although  Henry 
replied  to  the  Scottish  remonstrances  that  '  punishing 
pirates  had  never  been  held  to  be  a  breach  of  peace 
among  princes.'  The  question  where  the  wrong  lay  thus 
remained  unsettled  ;  and  in  the  depression  following  the 
battle  of  Flodden  the  principal  Scottish  men-of-war  were 
sold  to  France,  and  Scotland's  short  period  of  naval 
glory  came  to  an  end. 

Early  in  1511  it  became  too  clear  that  the  young  King 
intended  to  plunge  into  the  Continental  wars  arising 
out  of  the  French  invasions  of  Italy,  and  thus  to  dis- 
appoint the  thinking  men  who  had  looked  for  an   era 


no  The  Early  Tudor s.  151 1 

of  kindness  and  improvement.     Erasmus,  the  unfailing 
spokesman  of  sound  opinion  at  the  time,  was 
Fran^':  i^  despair   at   the    prospect   for   the  future, 

regarded.  Folly,  it  Seemed  to  him,  was  resuming  her 

ancient  reign  under  the  auspices  of  the 
tyrants  who  ruled  Europe  ;  and  trade,  learning,  humanity, 
religion  would  all  go  to  wreck.  '  O  that  God,"  he  says, 
'  would  deign  to  still  the  tempest  of  war  !  What  madness 
is  it !  The  wars  of  Christian  princes  begin  for  the  most 
part  out  of  ambition,  hatred,  or  lust,  or  like  diseases  of 
the  mind.  You  may  see  even  decrepit  old  men  display  all 
the  vigour  of  youth,  sparing  no  cost,  shrinking  from  no 
toil,  stopped  by  nothing,  if  only  they  can  turn  law,  religion, 
peace,  and  all  human  affairs  upside  down.  Think,  too, 
of  the  crimes  which  are  committed  under  the  pretext  of 
war,  for  among  the  din  of  arms  good  laws  are  silent: 
what  rapine,  what  sacrilege,  what  other  crimes  which 
decency  forbids  to  mention  !  The  demoralisation,  too, 
goes  on  for  years  after  the  war  is  over.'  '  Let  any 
physiognomist,'  he  says  on  another  occasion,  '  consider 
the  look  and  features  of  an  eagle — those  rapacious  and 
cruel  eyes,  that  threatening  curve  of  the  beak,  those 
wicked  jaws,  that  stern  front — will  he  not  recognise  at 
once  the  image  of  a  king  ?  Add  to  this  that  threatening 
scream  at  which  every  animal  trembles.  At  this  scream 
of  the  eagle  the  people  quake,  the  senate  yields,  the  no- 
bility cringes,  the  judges  concur,  laws  and  constitutions 
give  way ;  neither  right  nor  religion,  neither  justice  nor 
humanity,  avails.  Of  all  birds,  the  eagle  alone  has  seemed 
to  wise  men  the  type  of  royalty — carnivdrous,  greedy, 
hateful  to  all,  the  curse  of  all,  and  surpassing  even  its 
great  powers  of  doing  harm  by  its  desire  for  doing  it.'  Nor 
did  Erasmus's  friend  Colet  shrink  from  expressing  quite 
clearly   his    hatred    for    a  warlike   policy   even    before 


1 5 1 1       Peaceful  Beginnings  of  the  ncvu  Reign.  1 1 1 

Henry  himself.  We  are  told  that  '  he  preached  wonder- 
fully, on  the  victory  of  Christ,  exhorting  all  men  to  fight 
and  conquer  under  the  banner  of  this  their  King.'  He 
showed  that  when  wicked  men  destroy  one  another  out  of 
hatred  and  ambition,  they  fight  under  the  banner  not  of 
Christ,  but  of  the  devil.  '  How  difficult  a  thing  it  is,'  said 
he,  'to  die  a  Christian  death  on  a  field  of  battle  !  how  few 
undertake  a  war  except  from  hatred  and  ambition  !  how 
hardly  possible  is  it  for  those  who  have  brotherly  love, 
without  which  no  one  can  see  the  Lord,  to  thrust  their 
sword  into  their  brother's  blood ! '  The  King,  after 
hearing  this  sermon,  was  anxious  lest  it  should  stand  in 
the  way  of  volunteering,  and  sent  for  the  preacher  to 
Greenwich ;  after  an  hour  and  a  half  of  conversation  he 
still  remained  persuaded  that  his  war  was  exceptionally 
just,  but  those  who  hoped  for  Colet's  disgrace  were  dis- 
appointed by  Henry's  declaring  that  this  was  the  kind  of 
doctor  for  him.  This  incident  happened  after  the  first 
campaign  of  the  war  was  over ;  before  it  began  Henry 
had  been  strongly  dissuaded  from  it  by  his  Council,  who 
warned  him  that  the  use  of  firearms  had  destroyed  the 
advantage  which  England  had  hitherto  derived  from  her 
archery,  that  islands  should  not  make  conquests  on  the 
Continent,  that  England  alone  was  quite  sufficient  as  a 
kingdom,  and  that  voyages  of  discovery  were  the  one 
means  of  extending  it  profitably.  It  was  perhaps  un- 
fortunate that  Sebastian  Cabot  was  now  away,  and 
that  there  was  no  one  in  the  country  equally  capable 
of  turning  Henry's  thoughts  in  the  latter  direction.  As 
it  was,  all  expostulation  was  in  vain,  and  the  fancy  of  a 
youth  of  one-and-twenty  had  its  own  way.  There  was  to 
be  a  war,  which  was  in  its  turn  to  originate  many  others ; 
its  causes  and  conduct  belong  to  the  next  chapter. 


112  The  Early  Tudor s.  1 51 1 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  WAR   OF  TOURNAY. 
151I-1514. 

In  1511  Henry  VIII.  began  his  attack  on  France  in  de- 
fence of  Pope  Julius  II. ;  and  the  causes  of  the  war  in 
which  he  was  about  to  mingle  require  to  be 
ofCanTbSy  clcarly  Stated  as  illustrating  the  political  feel- 
ing of  the  time,  and  as  accounting  for  things 
farther  on.  It  sprang  originally  from  the  jealousy  of  Vene- 
tian power  felt  alike  by  the  Emperor  Maximihan,  by 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  by  Louis  XII.  of  France,  and  above 
all  by  the  Pope.  Between  these  powers  was  formed  in 
1 508  the  League  of  Cambray,  so  called  from  the  secret 
negotiations  at  that  place  between  Margaret  of  Savoy, 
Maximihan's  daughter,  and  Cardinal  d'Amboise  as 
French  plenipotentiary.  Venice  had  of  late  been  losing 
territory  in  the  East,  Lepanto,  St.  Maura,  and  others  of 
her  possessions  having  been  taken  by  the  Turks  ;  accord- 
ingly she  had  wished  to  extend  her  dominions  in  Italy 
itself,  and  had  seized  Rimini  and  Faenza  amid  the  con- 
fusion which  followed  the  death  by  poison  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI.  in  1503,  thus  controlling  much  of  the  seaboard 
of  the  Papal  States.  Her  territories  now  included  Ra- 
venna, Treviso,  Padua,  Verona,  Crema,  and  Brescia; 
and  in  ruling  these  she  showed  such  a  liberal  spirit  as  to 
be  able  in  time  of  trial  to  rely  on  them  implicitly.  She 
had  even  made  the  beginnings  of  a  settlement  on  Neapol- 
itan soil  by  lending  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  200,000  crowns, 
and  receiving  in  pledge  the  ports  of  Trani,  Brindisi,  Gal- 
lipoli,    Pulignano,    and  Otranto.     Besides  this  wide  do- 


1 51 1  The  War  of  Toumay.  113 

minion,  she  was  still  the  queen  of  maritime  enterprise 
and  trade,  her  supremacy  not  having  been  yet  destroyed, 
in  spite  of  the  discoveries  of  Columbus  and  Vasco  de 
Gama.  Her  factories  still  extended  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Don,  and  her  linen,  gilt  leather,  silks,  and  glass  were,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  best  in  the  world.  Moreover,  printing 
had  been  established  there  within  fifteen  years  of  its  first 
invention,  and  carried  to  high  perfection  by  the  Aldi.  All 
this  magnificence  excited  the  utmost  envy  in  the  poverty- 
stricken  monarchies  of  Western  Europe;  the  theory 
being,  as  Bayard  puts  it,  that  '  God  was  certainly  angry 
with  the  Venetians  for  living  so  gloriously  and  gorgeously, 
and  making  such  small  account  of  the  other  princes  of 
Christendom.'  Under  these  circumstances  a  plan  of 
spoHation  was  easily  settled  beforehand;  the  Pope  was 
to  recover  Rimini,  Faenza,  and  Ravenna,  Ferdinand  his 
Neapolitan  harbours  (without  paying  the  sum  for  which 
they  had  been  pledged),  and  Maximilian  the  noble  cities 
of  Padua,  Verona,  and  Vicenza,  with  several  others.  For 
the  conquest  of  these  last  the  King  of  the  Romans  was 
promised  help  from  the  native  nobles,  who  hoped  that  the 
Austrian  power  would  re-establish  against  their  fellow- 
citizens  the  feudal  privileges  of  which  the  Venetian  rule 
favoured  by  the  middle  and  lower  classes  had  deprived 
them. 

The  war  began  disastrously  for  Venice,  as  her  troops 
were  terribly  defeated  (May  14,  1509)  at  Agnadello,  a  vil- 
lage near  Crema  where  they  had  proposed  to 
stop  the  French   after  their   passage  of  the      of  Venice. 
Adda ;  and  so  little  were  they  able  to  recover 
themselves,  that  the  enemy  advanced  as  far  as  Mestre  and 
Fusina  in  the  environs  of  Venice,  and  even  threw  some 
hundreds  of  cannon-shot  across  the  lagoon  into  the  city. 
In  the  midst  of  this  confusion  the  Venetians  resolved  upon 
I 


114  T"^^  Early  Tudors.  151 1 

a  stroke  of  that  magnanimity  which  seldom  fails  in  political 
affairs ;  they  released  from  their  allegiance  the  cities  on 
the  mainland,  and  allowed  them  to  make  the  best  terms 
they  could  with  the  victors.  This  created  such  an  en- 
thusiasm in  their  favour,  that  Treviso,  Padua,  and  other 
places  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  rising  against 
Maximilian  and  returning  to  the  Venetian  rule ;  and 
when  the  King  of  the  Romans  tried  to  punish  Padua 
for  this,  its  stern  resistance  made  him  glad  to  raise  the 
siege.  Very  soon  the  usual  vices  of  a  coalition  had  begun 
to  show  themselves  ;  the  French,  too,  offended  Julius  by 
taking  Bologna  from  him,  and  were  also  promoting  a 
Church  Council  at  Pisa  in  opposition  to  his  power.  Fer- 
dinand's natural  jealousy  of  France  had  reappeared  with 
her  victories,  while  the  Pope  had  already  recovered 
Reggio,  Mirandola,  and  Parma,  and  was  ready  to  listen 
to  the  Venetian  offer  of  restoring  Ravenna  to  him.  As, 
therefore,  Julius  had  only  wished  to  use  the  League  of 
Cambray  for  his  own  purposes,  he  now  contrived  (October 
15,  151 1)  a  new  treaty,  under  the  name  of  the  Holy 
League,  by  which  he  himself,  the  Venetians,  and  Ferdi- 
nand were  to  expel  the  French  from  Italy.  Against  this 
coalition  the  French  fought  bravely  under  Gaston  de  Foix, 
taking  by  storm  the  city  of  Brescia,  which  was  one  of 
those  most  devoted  to  Venice,  and  utterly  defeating  the 
Spaniards  at  Ravenna  (April  11,  1512).  Here,  however, 
Gaston  was  slain,  and  the  loss  of  the  victors  was  so  enor- 
mous that  their  power  in  Italy  collapsed,  and  they  found 
difficulty  even  in  holding  on  at  a  few  scattered  points. 

„,„  At  this  point  Henry  VIII.  resolved  to  strike 

Henry  VIII.        .  .,,.',  /        .  .       ,    r  tt^ 

joins  the  m  With  his  frcsh  and  unmipaired  lorces.    J:le 

Le°ague.  profcsscd  to  be  scandalised  at  the  impiety  of 

His  failure.  waging  war  with  the  Pope,  who,  he  main- 
tained, had   no   superior  on  earth,  and  must  be  borne 


1512  The  War  of  Toumay.  115 

with,  however  froward  ;  but  at  the  same  time  had  the  pre- 
posterous hope  that  he  might  reconquer  France,  though 
its  population  and  revenue  were  four  times  those  of 
England.  On  his  marriage  he  had  professed  that  he 
and  Katherine  would  thenceforward  be  subjects  of 
Ferdinand  I.  Now  his  astute  father-in-law  took  him  at 
his  word  by  inducing  him  to  send  a  force  to  the  Spanish 
frontier  and  invade  France  from  thence,  while  he  him- 
self, thus  sheltered  from  attack,  was  adding  Navarre  to 
his  dominions.  From  the  English  point  of  view  there 
may  have  been  an  idea  of  waking  up  old  feelings  of 
attachment  to  our  rule  at  Bordeaux  ;  at  any  rate,  at- 
tempts to  conquer  the  Garonne  country  were  sure  to  be 
popular,  as,  if  successful,  they  would  make  wine  cheaper 
by  half  in  England.  Accordingly  an  army  of  io,coo  men 
was  organised  by  the  genius  of  Wolsey,  who  had  lately 
entered  the  King's  service,  and  despatched  under  the 
Marquis  of  Dorset  to  Fuentarabia,  where  they  landed 
June  7,  1 512.  Ferdinand  had  promised  that  an  army  of 
his  under  the  Duke  of  Alva  should  join  them  in  the 
invasion  of  Guienne ;  but,  instead  of  making  this  good, 
he  continued  his  operations  in  Navarre,  while  all  kinds 
of  misfortunes  befel  his  unhappy  allies.  They  found  no 
tents  provided  for  them,  though  the  season  was  most 
rainy,  and  no  sufficient  provisions,  though  their  own  had 
been  plundered  by  the  mariners  while  they  were  seasick  ; 
the  hot  Spanish  wines  produced  fever,  and  beer  there 
was  none.  The  officers  were  almost  useless  from  inex- 
perience, and  discontent  became  rife  in  the  camp,  many 
of  the  men  refusing  to  serve  unless  their  pay  was  raised 
from  sixpence  to  eightpence  a  day,  as  on  the  lower  sum 
they  were  in  danger  of  starvation.  On  August  28  a 
council  of  war  was  held  at  St.  Sebastian,  and  the  army 
took  the  strange    resolution  of  returning   home  without 


ii6 


The  Early  Tudors. 


1513 


orders.  In  vain  did  Henry  write  to  Ferdinand  desiring 
him  to  detain  it  by  force ;  by  October  7  they  were  on 
the  way  home,  and  a  shower  of  epigrams  from  all 
Europe  was  preparing  for  the  warriors  so  soon  weary 
of  the  field.  Unable,  however,  to  fix  the  responsibility 
on  any  one  in  particular,  Henry  resolved  by  the  advice 
of  his  Council  to  let  the  matter  drop — with  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  that  the  influence  of  France  had  been 
increased  by  the  failure  of  his  attack  thus  far.     Soon, 

CAMPAIGN  OF  TEROUENNE. 


however,  an  act  of  peculiar,  though  unsuccessful,  daring 
came  to  restore  both  King  and  nation  to  better  humour. 

In  March  15 13  Sir  Edward  Howard  with  forty-three 
vessels  sailed  for  the  Breton  coast  as  the  forerunner  of  the 
larger  expedition  planned  for  the  year,  and 
longing  to  avenge  the  loss  of  the  '  Sovereign,* 
which  had  been  burned  in  the  preceding 
August.  He  soon  drove  the  French  fleet  opposed  to  him 
to  shelter  under  the  guns  of  Brest,  where  they  fortified 
themselves  in  order  to  wait  for  six  of  their  galleys  from 


Naval 
operations. 


1 513  The   War  of  Toiirnay.  wj 

the  Mediterranean.  Hearing  that  these  were  near,  and 
had  anchored  between  two  forts  in  water  too  shallow  for 
his  ships  to  approach.  Sir  Edward  resolved  to  attack  all 
six  with  the  only  two  galleys  which  he  had ;  being,  it  is 
said,  stung  by  a  hint  from  the  Council  at  home  that  in  in- 
viting Henry  to  command  in  person  at  the  destruction 
of  the  French  fleet  he  had  wished  to  evade  his  duty. 
He  laid  his  own  galley  close  to  a  hostile  one,  and  had 
already  boarded  her  in  person,  when  the  vessels  hap- 
pened to  part,  and  he  was  left  almost  unsupported  on 
the  enemy's  deck.  Unwilling  that  they  should  have  the 
spoils  of  an  Enghsh  admiral,  he  threw  his  gold  chain 
and  whistle  into  the  sea,  and  next  moment  was  thrust 
overboard  and  perished.  In  recognition  of  his  splendid 
services,  Henry  restored  his  father  to  the  Dukedom  of 
Norfolk,  and  made  his  brother  Sir  Thomas  Earl  of  Surrey 
just  in  time  to  command  at  Flodden. 

On  July  26,  1 5 13,  Henry  advanced  in  person  from  his 
city  of  Calais  to  join  Maximilian  at  Are ;  and  was  hardly 
less  beguiled  by  him  than  he  had  been  by 

_,      J.  ,        „  ,        !•  -I     1  Invasion  of 

rerdmand.  For  not  only  did  the  poverty-  France. 
stricken  Emperor  obtain  pay  as  Henry's  sol- 
dier, but  he  induced  him  to  attack  two  places  not  really 
important  to  his  interests,  but  very  much  so  to  those  of  his 
confederate.  These  were  Terouenne  and  Tournay.  The 
former  of  these  was  a  French  frontier  town  just  outside 
Maximilian's  province  of  Artois.  He  had  vainly  striven 
to  conquer  it  in  1479;  and  it  had  lately  been  a  constant 
annovance  to  his  Artois  subjects,  who  ardently  desired  to 
see  it  reduced  and  its  fortifications  levelled  with  the 
ground.  Tournay,  though  in  the  rear  of  Maximilian's 
advanced  dominions,  had  remained  as  a  French  outlier 
in  his  territory,  and  was  therefore  a  thorn  in  his  side. 
Both  places  were  quite  beyond  the  true  line  of  an  Eng- 


Il8  The  Early  Tudor s.  1513 

lish  invasion,  which  should  naturally  have  been  straight 
towards  Paris.  However,  the  siege  of  Terouenne  was 
formed.  On  August  16,  a  French  force  under  the  Due 
de  Longueville  tried  to  relieve  it,  but  was  defeated  by  a 
charge  of  Maximilian's  men-at-arms,  supported  by  the 
English  army,  an  exploit  which  gained  for  the  Emperor 
in  England  the  title  of  '  the  second  Mavors,'  and  which 
the  French,  with  a  satire  which  did  not  spare  themselves, 
called  the  '  Battle  of  the  Spurs.'  The  French  general 
La  Palice  and  the  celebrated  Bayard  remained  prisoners. 
On  August  22  Terouenne  surrendered,  and  on  the  28th 
Tournay,  in  spite  of  the  strength  of  its  walls  and  gates. 

On  leaving  home,  Henry  had  made  Katherine  Regent, 
and,  in  order  to  secure  her  position,  had  ordered  the  exe- 
cution of  Edmund  de  la  Pole,  whose  life  had 
Flodden  been   promised   in    1506    to  the   Archduke 

Philip.  It  is  said  that  Henry  VII.  had 
charged  his  son  on  his  death-bed  to  regard  the  pledge  as 
made  for  the  reign  only.  During  the  French  campaign, 
in  fact  on  the  same  day  as  the  Battle  of  the  Spurs,  James 
IV.  of  Scotland,  who  had  thrown  in  his  lot  with  France, 
was  defeated  and  slain  by  Lord  Surrey.  This  disaster  to 
Scotland  is  so  well  known  that  it  is  only  necessary  to 
notice  its  salient  points.  After  capturing  the  casdes  of 
Norham,  Wark,  and  Ford,  James  took  up  his  posidon  on 
the  defensible  ridge  of  Flodden,  an  offshoot  of  the  Chev- 
iots between  the  Till  on  the  east  and  the  Tweed,  near 
Coldstream,  on  the  north — a  proceeding  which  Surrey 
regarded  as  shabby  in  one  who  had  accepted  his  chal- 
lenge to  fight  the  matter  out  on  equal  ground.  James  s 
camp  had  the  Till  on  its  left  and  an  impassable  marsh  on 
the  right,  and  was  defended  in  front  by  the  whole  of  the 
splendid  Scottish  artillery.  It  was  therefore  unassailable, 
and  Surrey  could  only  turn  it ;  this  he  did  splendidly  by 


I5I3 


The   War  of  Tournay. 


119 


carrying  his  30,000  men  first  by  Weetwood  Bridge  to  the 
right  bank  of  the  Till  (as  if  he  were  retreating  to 
Berwick),  and  then  back  by  Twisel  Bridge,  near  the 
junction  of  the  rivers— thus  placing  himself  between 
James  and  Scotland.  Borthwick,  the  commander  of  the 
Scottish  artillery,  entreated  permission  to  cannonade  the 

BATTLE  0¥  nODDETf  TIELD. 


6C*LE  OF  MTLES 


enemy  while  recrossing  the  river ;  but  the  distance  from 
Flodden,  which  was  six  miles,  would  not  allow  of  the 
guns  being  properly  supported,  even  if  they  could  be 
brought  up  in  time.  Surrey  was  therefore  allowed  to  get 
clear  over  and  form  on  the  left  bank  before  James  was 
near  enough  to  attack.     Even  when  he  did  so,  every- 


I20  The  Early  Tudor s.  15 14 

thing  was  mismanaged.  The  Highlanders,  who  for  the 
first  time  in  recent  warfare  were  then  fighting  beside  a 
Lowland  force,  were  not  allowed  to  rush  on  in  the  pecu- 
liar manner  which  made  them  formidable  ;  the  Scottish 
guns  did  little,  while  Surrey's  were  most  effective ;  and, 
worst  of  all,  James  himself,  instead  of  acting  as  a  general 
should,  plunged  into  the  fight  as  soon  as  his  centre  was 
engaged,  in  hope  of  meeting  Surrey  in  single  combat, 
and  fell  when  he  had  all  but  reached  his  enemy,  the  chief 
men  of  his  army  being  slain  around  him.  His  body  was 
discovered  among  a  heap  of  slain,  and  wrapped  in  lead, 
but  not  buried,  as  he  had  died  under  excommunication. 
There  is  a  sad  story  of  its  being  shamefully  misused  some 
years  after  at  the  monastery  of  Sheen  ;  a  still  sadder  one, 
that  the  Scots  believed  that  he  had  escaped  from  the  field 
and  gone  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  Nearly  the 
whole  of  the  Scottish  peerage  were  among  the  10,000  who 
fell ;  and  of  the  gentry  almost  every  family  had  lost  one 
or  more  of  its  members.  Well  might  the  graceful  and 
pathetic  ballad  which  records  the  calamity  say  that  '  the 
flowers  of  the  forest  were  a'  wede  away.' 

Yet  this  overthrow  of  the  ally  of  France  did  little  to 

strengthen   the    confederacy  against   Louis   XIL,  which 

was  by  this  time  dying  of  inanition.     Tulius 

Home  .        .  ^      o  J 

effects  of  II.  had  died  in  1 5 1 3,  and  had  been  succeeded 

by  the  pacific  Leo  X.,  one  of  Linacre's  young 
fellow-scholars  at  Florence.  Maximilian  had  been  bribed 
off  by  the  promise  of  Louis'  daughter  Renee  for  his 
grandson  Charles,  with  the  French  claims  on  Milan  for  her 
dowry,  and  Ferdinand  was  content  with  his  acquisition 
of  Navarre  and  the  Neapolitan  ports.  In  a  frenzy  of 
anger  at  being  deserted  when  Maximilian  and  Francis 
made  peace  at  Noyon,  Henry  meditated  the  wildest 
schemes  of  vengeance.     He  grasoed  eagerly  at  the  offer 


1 51 5  The  War  of  Tournay.  121 

of  a  French  alliance,  and  was  ready  even  to  stultify  him- 
self by  helping  Louis  to  recover  Navarre.  A  marriage 
was  to  cement  this  new  friendship ;  the  French  king 
having  just  become  a  widower  by  the  death  of  Anne  of 
Bretagne,  and  Henry's  young  and  lovely  sister  Mary 
being  still  undisposed  of,  though  she  had  thought  of  mar- 
rying the  Duke  of  Suffolk.  The  poor  girl  was  therefore 
sacrificed  to  the  new  alliance,  Henry  engaging  that  she 
should  be  allowed  to  please  herself  next  time,  and  the 
bridegroom's  age  and  state  of  health  affording  a  pleasing 
hope  that  this  time  was  not  far  off.  In  fact,  indigestion 
and  late  hours  soon  ended  the  ill-assorted  union,  and 
Mary,  resolved  not  to  be  again  a  victim  to  her  brother's 
policy,  married  Suffolk  privately  on  the  earliest  opportu- 
nity, and  managed,  though  with  difficulty,  to  disarm  the 
royal  anger  by  agreeing  to  pay  a  large  sum  yearly  towards 
the  expenses  of  her  first  marriage.  Louis  was  succeeded 
(January  i,  151 5)  by  his  cousin  and  son-in-law,  the  Due 
d'Angouleme,  under  the  name  of  Francis  I.;  and  from 
Mary's  second  and  happier  marriage  ultimately  sprang 
the  great  family  of  the  Greys. 

We  cannot  but  see  that  these  campaigns  left  Henry  and 
England  politically  where  they  were  ;  except  indeed  that 
no  one  would  now  deny  that  the  islanders  were  stout  men 
of  their  hands  and  good  backers  for  Emperor  or  King  in 
a  struggle.  The  sum  spent  must  have  been  prodigious, 
for  each  archer  was  paid  what  would  now  be  six  to  eight 
shillings  a  day  ;  indeed  the  war  devoured  the  income  of 
twelve  years.  Public  order  was  for  the  time  at  an  end : 
in  1 5 14  the  royal  treasure-waggons  were  robbed  by  a 
bold  gang  of  whom  eighty  were  captured  and  executed, 
the  rest  escaping  to  sanctuary.  Taxation  rose  to  an 
astonishing  height ;  twice  over  in  twelve  months  an  in- 
come-tax of  sixpence  in  the  potmd  exacted  from  the  very 


122  The  Early  Tudors.  151 5 

day-labourers  between  two  and  three  weeks'  wages.  At 
the  same  time  an  Act  was  passed  (151 5)  to  restrain  the 
rise  in  the  cost  of  labour  naturally  resulting  from  the  drain 
of  men  for  the  army,  of  which  the  first  draught  is,  as  Mr. 
Brewer  remarks,  in  Wolsey's  own  hand.  The  want  of 
labourers  in  turn  converted  more  fallows  into  sheep- 
farms,  still  farther  decreasing  the  rural  population.  Nor 
did  the  war  deal  more  tenderly  with  traders  ;  for,  besides 
the  preposterous  taxation  which  crippled  them,  their 
business  was  hable  to  interruption  even  by  the  quarrels 
of  confederates,  as  when  Henry  in  151 5  stopped  the 
export  of  wool  to  Holland  and  Zealand  on  some  notion 
that  Maximilian's  grandson  Charles  had  affronted  him. 
"Well  had  the  war  justified  its  dissuaders,  and,  what  was 
worse  still,  the  notion  that  we  ought  to  reconquer  France 
might  revive  and  renew  it  at  any  moment.  It  had  also 
fostered  in  Henry  the  ruthlessness  which  his  portraits 
alone  would  prove  to  have  been  natural  to  him,  and  which 
afterwards  made  his  times  of  peace,  like  those  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  more  dangerous  to  those  about 
him  than  many  battles  would  have  been.  Such  is  ever 
the  bitter  fruit  of  wars  like  his,  alike  causeless,  ill- 
managed,  cruel,  and  inconclusive  as  they  almost  always 
were. 


CHAPTER   X. 


DOMESTIC   AFFAIRS   AFTER   THE   PEACE  WITH   FRANCE. 
I515-I518. 

Peace  was  now  restored  to  England ;  the  question  was 
whether  or  no  the  government  would  restore  national 
prosperity  after  the  trials  which  it  had  sustained.  The 
task  was  not  hopeless  ;  for,  though  sorely  burthened  at 


1 51 5  Domestic  Affairs  after  the  Peace.  123 

home,  our  commerce  had  been  extended  abroad  at  the 
expense  of  Venice,  ships  from  London  and 
Southampton  having  found  their  way  to  trade'L  the 
Sicily,  Crete,  Chios,  and  even  to  TripoH  and  i^nds^"^' 
Beyrout ;  Enghsh  merchants  had  also  been 
profitably  employing  vessels  hired  at  Ragusa  and  other 
Mediterranean  ports.  Indeed  neither  Henry  nor  his  great 
minister  Wolsey  could  be  charged  with  general  indiffer- 
ence to  trade  interests  ;  for  they  founded  the  Corporation 
of  the  Trinity  House  for  the  management  of  pilotage  and 
lighthouses,  spent  not  less  than  65,000/.  on  the  pier  at 
Dover,  and  improved  the  harbours  of  Hull,  Southampton, 
Newcastle,  Scarborough,  and  Calais.  The  inland  com- 
munications of  the  country  were  also  by  degrees  made 
better,  and  the  navy-yards  and  storehouses  of  Woolwich 
and  Deptford  founded.  In  order  to  increase  trade  with 
the  Netherlands,  Wolsey  obtained  a  congress  at  Antwerp 
in  151 5  (where  England  was  represented  by  Bishop 
Tunstal,  Sir  E.  Poynings,  and  the  young  Thomas  More), 
in  the  hope  of  replacing  England  on  the  footing  of  the 
'  Intercursus  Malus '  described  in  Chapter  V.  The 
Flemings  strongly  maintained  that  this  had  been  a  per- 
sonal arrangement  of  the  Archduke  Philip's,  and  had 
fallen  through  with  his  death.  To  this  the  English 
replied  that  he  had  expressly  agreed  for  his  heirs  after 
him,  that  no  other  agreement  had  been  substituted  for  it, 
and  that  no  documents  could  be  quoted  to  prove  that  it 
had  ever  stopped.  From  this  subject  the  Congress  passed 
to  the  discussion  of  grievances,  Tunstal  complaining 
that  his  countrymen  had  been  forced  to  pay  illegal  tolls 
even  when  driven  in  by  storms,  and  that  embargoes 
were  sometimes  laid  on  their  vessels  for  years,  after 
which  they  had  to  pay  '  anchor  money '  for  the  time  of 
detention.      The  quarrels    on  points  like  these  rose  so 


124  The  Early  Tiidors.  151 5 

high  that  one  of  the  commissioners  was  excommunicated 
in  the  Antwerp  churches,  and  the  others  were  'calum- 
niated frightfully.'  Fortunately  for  them,  political  cir- 
cumstances just  then  made  Charles's  advisers  more 
anxious  than  ever  for  an  English  alliance,  and  therefore 
all  difficulties  solved  themselves.  The  question  of  the 
'  Intercursus  Malus' was  adjourned  for  five  years;  but 
meantime  it  was  to  remain  in  force.  As  to  other 
grievances,  our  merchants  must  have  been  hard  to  please 
if  they  were  not  satisfied.  All  English  privileges  were 
extended:  they  might  choose  their  own  brokers  and 
porters  ;  all  legal  remedies  should  be  freely  open  to  them ; 
their  cases  should  take  precedence  of  all  others,  and  be 
always  decided  within  six  days  ;  quarrels  of  Englishmen 
among  themselves  were  to  be  settled  in  their  own  consular 
courts,  which  would  be  supported  by  the  magistrates  in 
case  of  resistance;  and  the  factory  at  Antwerp  was  to 
remain  theirs  in  full  property. 

About  this  time  a  curious  incident  arose  out  of  Henry's 
anxiety  for  the  welfare  of  seaports.  A  Cornish  member 
named  Strode  had  promoted  an  Act  of  Par- 
mining,  liament  hindering  Cornish  mine-owners  from 
throwing  rubbish  into  the  rivers  and  thus 
forming  bars  below.  He  had  overlooked  the  fact  that  the 
Cornish  and  Devonshire  miners  lived  under  a  constitu- 
tion of  their  own,  holding  a  small  district  parliament 
under  the  Warden  of  the  Stannaries,  the  enactments  of 
which  had  the  force  of  local  laws.  This  body  had  passed 
an  ordinance  in  15 10  that  everyone  might  dig  for  tin 
where  he  could  find  it,  and  '  carry  the  waters  to  his  works 
according  to  old  custom,'  all  hinderers  being  liable  to  a 
fine  of  40/.  This  they  proceeded  coolly  to  inflict  on  Strode 
for  his  doings  at  Westminster ;  and,  as  he  would  not  pay, 
they  threw  him  into  irons  in  a  damp  dungeon,  and  fed 


1 51 5  Domestic  Affairs  after  the  Peace.  125 

him  there  for  three  weeks  on  bread  and  water.  Fortu- 
nately he  was  wanted  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  do  his  duty 
as  a  collector  of  taxes,  and  a  royal  order  set  him  free. 
But  before  he  was  released  his  captors  added  insult  to 
injury  by  making  him  give  a  bond  of  100/.  for  costs  ! 
The  sentence  and  the  bond  were  of  course  cancelled  by 
Parliament,  which  also  asserted  that  no  one  could  be  pun- 
ished either  for  bringing  or  procuring  a  bill  to  be  brought 
into  Parliament,  or  for  any  opinion  delivered  in  speaking 
to  a  motion.  Nothing  was  at  that  time  done  to  remedy 
the  damage  to  the  rivers ;  but  twenty  years  later,  when 
Plymouth,  Falmouth,  Dartmouth,  Teignmouth,  and  Fowey 
were  all  suffering  from  the  same  cause,  and  a  ship  of  100 
tons  could  hardly  get  up  where  there  had  been  water 
enough  for  one  of  800,  a  law  was  passed  forbidding  the 
use  for  mining  purposes  of  any  river  flowing  into  a  har- 
bour ;  even  in  this  it  was  thought  necessary  to  guard  by 
an  express  clause  againt  Parliament  being  set  at  nought 
by  the  Court  of  Stannaries.  In  the  latter  part  of  the 
reign  parliamentary  privileges  were  farther  established  by 
the  decision  of  the  judges  in  1542  that  the  Commons  had 
acted  legally  in  setting  free  by  their  own  authority,  and 
without  any  legal  process,  Ferrars  the  member  for  Ply- 
mouth, who  had  been  imprisoned  for  debt  by  the  City 
authorities.  The  quarrel  was  not  settled  until  the  sheriffs 
and  all  parties  concerned  in  the  arrest  had  been  sent  to 
prison,  and  the  King  himself  had  expressed  strong  appro- 
bation of  the  vigour  displayed  by  the  House  of  Commons 
in  the  maintenance  of  its  time-honoured  exemption. 

As  our  traders  were  anxious  to  sell  their   cloths   by 
retail  in  as  many  Flemish  towns  as  possible, 
it  might  be  supposed  that  they  would  have      fo^reignera° 
been  ready  to  admit  the  idea  of  reciprocity. 
But  fairness  in  such  claims  is  not  always  thought  of  where 


126  The  Early  Tudors.  1517 

great  interests  are  at  stake  ;  and  our  merchants  were  in 
point  of  fact  not  less  anxious  to  keep  foreigners'  goods 
out  of  England  than  to  sell  their  own  elsewhere.  Good 
reasons  for  restricting  imports  were  of  course  ready  ;  it  was 
argued  in  the  first  place  that  foreigners  made  their  profits 
by  tempting  people  to  buy  '  fancies  and  tryfuUes '  such 
as  England  might  well  do  without,  and  in  the  second 
(with  doubtful  consistency)  that  foreign  competition  was 
destroying  all  wholesome  English  trade.  Dutchmen  were 
bringing  over  timber  ready  cut,  and  leather  ready  manu- 
factured, with  nails,  locks,  baskets,  cupboards,  stools, 
tables,  chests,  girdles,  saddles,  and  printed  cloths.  '  The 
Merchant  Strangers,'  men  querulously  said,  '  are  import- 
ing silk,  wine,  oil,  and  iron,  and  moreover  carrying  away 
so  much  wool,  tin,  and  lead,  that  Englishmen  can  have 
no  living.*  By  thus  taking  imports  and  exports  separately, 
and  not  as  balancing  one  another,  and  by  showing  to  their 
own  satisfaction  that  England  was  parting  with  what  she 
most  wanted  in  exchange  either  for  superfluities  or  for 
what  should  be  made  by  English  hands,  the  grumblers 
raised  the  jealousy  against  foreigners  to  a  white  heat ; 
and,  on  May-day,  15 17,  it  burst  out  with  great  violence, 
through  a  protectionist  sermon  preached  by  Dr.  John 
Bell  at  the  Spital  Church  a  few  days  before.  Taking 
for  his  text  '  Terram  dedit  filiis  hominum,'  the  orator  pro- 
ceeded to  descant  on  the  public  grievances.  '  The  land,' 
he  said,  '  was  given  to  Englishmen,  and  as  birds  defend 
their  nests,  so  ought  Englishmen  to  cherish  and  defend 
themselves,  and  to  hurt  and  grieve  aliens,  for  respect  of 
their  commonwealth.'  As  it  began  to  be  rumoured  that 
May-day  would  be  chosen  for  an  attack  upon  the  Steel- 
yard, which  was  the  London  centre  of  German  trade, 
Wolsey  took  care  to  send  for  the  Lord  Mayor  on  April 
30,  and  commanded  him  by  all  means  to  preserve  the 


1 517  Domestic  Affairs  after  the  Peace.  127 

peace.  Accordingly  a  meeting  of  the  Aldermen  was 
held,  and  they  were  ordered  to  proclaim  in  their  several 
wards  that  every  house-owner  must  stay  at  home  and  keep 
in  all  his  household  from  nine  o'clock  that  evening  till 
the  same  hour  of  the  following  morning.  The  announce- 
ment, however,  produced  in  the  notoriously  turbulent 
ward  of  Cheap  the  very  disturbance  which  it  was  intended 
to  prevent.  The  cry  of  '  clubs '  was  at  once  raised,  and 
hundreds  of  apprentices  came  pouring  from  the  precincts 
of  St.  Paul's.  The  rioters  broke  open  the  Compter  and 
Newgate,  and  released  some  prisoners  who  had  been 
committed  in  the  last  few  days  for  attacks  on  foreigners. 
After  this  they  proceeded,  in  defiance  of  the  magistrates,  to 
plunder  private  houses,  especially  those  of  strangers,  the 
masters  of  which  they  announced  their  intention  of  be- 
heading by  lynch-law.  In  the  midst  of  the  tumult  the 
Lieutenant  of  the  Tower  actually  opened  fire  upon  the  city 
from  his  batteries,  creating  immense  terror,  but  doing 
little  real  damage.  Not  finding  any  foreigners  at  home, 
the  mob  began  to  disperse ;  but  the  last  who  retreated, 
to  the  number  of  300,  were  intercepted  and  sent  to  prison. 
In  order  to  strike  more  terror,  the  government  prepared 
ten  moveable  gibbets  as  if  to  execute  the  prisoners  at  all 
parts  of  the  town ;  but,  whether  from  the  influence  of 
bribes  judiciously  applied,  or  from  a  certain  sympathy 
with  the  rioters  felt  by  men  in  power,  the  only  person 
finally  executed  was  a  broker  named  Lincoln,  by  whose 
persuasion  the  unlucky  sermon  had  been  preached.  The 
day  was  long  remembered  in  London  as  the  'Evil  May-day,* 
and  it  is  said  that  the  gaieties  proper  to  the  season  were 
never  again  celebrated  as  freely  as  before  this  untoward 
event.  That  foreign  trade  after  this  was  thought  to  require 
some  restriction  we  may  infer  from  the  Act  of  1525  which 
forbade  alien  merchants  to  take  any  foreigners  as  appren- 


128  The  Early  Tudors.  15 17 

tices  or  to  have  more  than  two  foreign  journeymen — a 
blow  evidently  aimed  at  the  peculiar  constitution  of  the 
German  factory  of  the  Steelyard  in  London,  whose  man- 
agers with  their  employes,  all  foreigners  alike,  lived  in  a 
half-monastic  fashion  within  their  fortified  buildings,  un- 
married, and  avoiding  connections  with  their  neighbours. 
A  still  unkinder  stroke  was  that  the  same  Act  placed 
every  alien  exercising  a  handicraft  in  London  under 
the  '  search  and  reformation '  of  the  fellowship  of  his 
particular  craft  there. 

The  population  of  England  (which  had  been  about 
2,500,000  at  the  time  of  the  poll-tax  of  1377)  had  now 
increased  to  about  3,500,000.  Yet,  curiously  enough, 
there  was  a  general  impression  that  the  number  of  people 
p     .   .  in  the  country  was  diminishing.     It  was  evi- 

shifting  in  dent  that  the  larger  corporate  towns,  such  as 

England.  . 

Norwich,  were  gettmg  less  populous ;  there 
being  obviously  Httle  inclination  to  rebuild  decayed 
houses  or  to  restore  them  after  a  fire.  But  the  cause  of 
this  phenomenon  quite  escaped  the  notice  of  political 
thinkers.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  pressure  of  the  guild 
regulations  in  the  large  borough  towns,  which  people 
were  glad  to  escape  by  living  beyond  their  limits.  Thus 
an  employer  might  be  comparatively  free  as  to  his  mode 
and  hours  of  working,  the  number  of  his  apprentices 
and  hands,  and  the  wages  which  he  paid.  Accordingly 
manufactures  now  spread  themselves  over  several  new 
districts  ;  amongst  others  the  towns  of  Birmingham  and 
Manchester  increased  much  at  this  time.  As  even  accu- 
rate observers  could  not  see  the  whole  country  at  once, 
they  were  naturally  misled  by  the  appearances  of  decay 
in  the  older  and  more  celebrated  towns,  and  thought  that 
the  same  process  was  going  on  everywhere. 

A  far  less  imaginary  depopulation  of  the  country  dis- 


1 517  Domestic  Affairs  after  the  Peace.  129 

tricts,  such  as  the  '  Utopia '  had  lamented,  had  excited 
alarm  as  early  as  1489,  when  it  was  remarked 
that  the  Isle  of  Wight,  which,  as  being  par-      uo^noFthe' 
ticularly  exposed  to  French  attack,  required      districts 
to  be  well  peopled,  was  becoming  '  desolate 
and  not  inhabited,  but  occupied  by  beasts  and  cattle.'    It 
was  therefore  enacted  in  that  year  that  no  one  of  any  rank 
whatever  should  hold  more  than  one  farm  there  of  the 
maximum  value  of  6/.  13^-.  4^.  a  year,  and  that  those  who 
occupied    several  such  should    elect  which  they  would 
retain,  and  their  leases  be  void  as  regarded  the  remainder. 
This  restored  the  population  of  the  island,  and  enabled  it, 
as  Mr.  Froude  has  remarked,  to  foil  the  French  invasion 
of  1546.     In  the  present  reign  the  same  principle  was 
carried   out  more  broadly  by   an   Act    of    151 5,  which 
ordered  that,  if  the  holder  of   any  estate  in    England 
destroyed  farmhouses  upon  it,  the  superior  lord  should 
resume  possession  of  half  of  it  until  they  were  rebuilt ; 
and  by  another  twenty  years  after,  which  gave  the  same 
power  to  the  King,  if  no  intermediate  lord  had  exercised  it. 
The  change  in  the  hands  of  new  proprietors  from  cus- 
tomary to  competition  rents  was  also  bitterly  complained 
of.     It  produced,  as  Bishop  Latimer  shows  in 
a  well-known  passage,  a  fatal  change  in  the      ;„  rents^ 
position  of  the  smaller  tenants.    '  My  father,' 
he  says,  'was  a  yeoman,  and  had  no  lands  of  his  own; 
only  he  had  a  farm  of  three  or  four  pounds  by  year,  and 
hereupon  tilled  so  much  as  kept  half-a-dozen  men  ;  he 
had  walk  for  a  hundred  sheep,  and  my  mother  milked 
thirty  kine.     He  was  able  and  did  find  the  King  a  har- 
ness, with  himself  and  his  horse  until  he  came  to  the  place 
where  he  should  receive  the  King's  wages.   I  can  remem- 
ber that  I  buckled  his  harness  when  he  went  into  Black- 
heath  Field.     He  kept  me  to  school,  or  else  I  had  not 
J 


130  The  Early  Tudor s.  1517 

been  able  to  have  preached  before  the  King's  majesty  now. 
He  married  my  sisters  with  five  pound  or  twenty  nobles  a 
piece.  He  kept  hospitality  for  his  poor  neighbours,  and 
some  alms  he  gave  to  the  poor.  And  all  this  he  did  off 
the  said  farm,  where  he  that  now  hath  it  payeth  sixteen 
pounds  by  year  or  more,  and  is  not  able  to  do  anything 
for  his  prince,  for  himself,  nor  for  his  children,  or  give  a 
cup  of  drink  to  the  poor.'  This  agrees  with  More's 
declaration  in  the  '  Utopia  '  that  tenants  were  '  pilled  and 
polled '  by  their  landlords,  who  not  only  drove  off  their 
tenants  to  make  sheep-walks,  but  constantly  managed 
either  by  fraud  or  violence  to  make  small  freeholders  sell 
their  lands.  And  the  trouble  continued  through  Henry 
VIII. 's  reign  into  that  of  his  son,  when  the  Protector 
Somerset's  ill-planned  endeavour  to  remedy  it  was  one  of 
the  great  causes  of  his  fall. 

In  the  miserable  state  of  Scotland  after  the  battle  of 
Flodden  two  courses  had  been  open  to  Henry  ;  he  might 
„     ,     ,  either  have  ordered  Surrey  to  advance  and 

Scotland 

under  Queen      conqucr  the  Country  once  for  all,  or  he  might 

Margaret.  ^  i   ^  „  ;r  .  ^  r 

have  answered  Queen  Margaret  s  appeal  tor 
brotherly  help  and  supported  the  infant  King  by  all 
means  in  his  power.  Yet  he  took  neither,  but  allowed 
his  victorious  army  to  be  disbanded,  and  Scottish  affairs 
to  fall  into  hopeless  confusion  without  interference.  A 
Parliament  was  at  once  held  at  Edinburgh  which  ap- 
pointed Margaret  Regent  and  guardian  of  the  King ;  but 
in  August  1 514  she  forfeited  all  public  confidence  by 
marrying  Lord  Angus,  who  was  considered  as  the  head 
of  the  English  party  in  Scotland,  and  a  rebellion  at  once 
arose  against  her.  Her  opponents  entreated  Francis  I. 
to  send  over  to  their  help  the  Duke  of  Albany,  the 
younger  brother  of  James  III.,  who  had  lived  all  his  life 
in  France  and  held  the  rank  of  Lord  High  Admiral  there. 


1 5 17  Domestic  Affairs  after  the  Peace.  13I 

Escaping  with  some  difficulty  from  the  Enghsh  cruisers 
off  St.  Malo,  Albany  reached  Dumbarton  in  May  1 51 5 
with  a  considerable  train  of  Frenchmen,  whom  he  pro- 
ceeded to  raise  to  positions  of  authority,  thus  exciting  a 
jealousy  second  only  to  that  against  England.  Yet  he 
was  appointed  Protector  till  James  V.  reached  the  age  of 
eighteen,  and  at  once  besieged  Stirling  Castle  in  order  to 
get  possession  of  the  royal  children.  All  this  time  Lord 
Dacre,  who  commanded  on  the  Border,  was  trying  various 
means  to  support  the  English  interest  in  Scotland.  He 
aided  as  strongly  as  possible  the  resistance  to  Albany, 
received  all  those  who  were  exiled  for  rebelHng  against 
him,  tried  to  carry  off  the  princes  by  the  help  of  Angus, 
and,  failing  in  this,  at  last  persuaded  Margaret  herself  to 
take  refuge  in  England.  The  Queen  escaped  to  Berwick 
in  September  151 5,  and  was  immediately  after  this  deliv- 
ered of  a  '  fair  young  lady,*  afterwards  well  known  as 
Lady  Lennox,  the  mother  of  Henry  Darnley,  and  con- 
sidered nearer  the  English  succession  from  having  been 
born  on  our  soil.  Ill  and  miserable,  Margaret  was  car- 
ried on  men's  shoulders  to  Morpeth,  and  soon  heard  that 
her  husband  and  his  partisans  had  been  defeated  by  the 
Protector.  Angus  himself  was  sent  prisoner  to  France  ; 
but  he  soon  escaped  to  join  his  wife,  and  Henry  was 
glad  to  welcome  both  as  instruments  for  any  future  plan 
against  Scotland.  Meanwhile  Albany  was  getting  so 
weary  of  his  position  as  Regent,  that  to  escape  from  it  he 
would,  as  he  said,  '  gladly  have  walked  on  foot  all  the 
way  to  London  '  ;  and  in  1516  he  returned  to  France  on 
business  of  his  own,  leaving  French  garrisons  in  the 
chief  fortresses,  but  with  little  idea  of  returning  at  the 
time  fixed.  In  1517  the  treaty  of  Noyon  allowed  Mar- 
garet to  return  to  Scodand ;  where  she  found  that  her 
friends  had  been  put  to  death  for  favouring  her  escape, 


132  The  Early  Tudors.  15 17 

and  that  she  would  not  be  allowed  to  take  any  part  in  the 
administration. 

Great  and  various  also  were  the  Irish  troubles  at  this 

time,  though  they  did  not  burst   into  actual  war.     Only 

five  half-counties   were  really  under    Eng- 

The  govern-        ,.   ,     ,  i    •        i  i  ■  r    i 

mentof  lish  law,  and  m  these  the  vexations  of  the 

^^  ^"  ■  courts  were  compelling  landholders  to   sell 

the  smaller  estates.  The  power  of  the  colonists  had  been 
also  weakened  by  a  pestilence  which  had  raged  among 
them,  by  the  death  of  several  eminent  leaders  without 
heirs,  and  by  their  disuse  of  English  weapons.  The 
only  possible  remedy  seemed  to  be  to  call  for  more 
colonists — if  possible  one  from  each  parish  in  England — 
to  civilise  Irish  chieftains  perforce  by  making  them 
Lords  of  Parliament  if  they  had  1,000  marks  a  year, 
and  to  induce  them  to  send  their  sons  to  Dublin  or 
Drogheda  to  be  taught  reading  and  writing,  with  the 
English  manners  and  language.  But  at  this  time  Henry 
had  not  sufficient  interest  in  their  country  to  make  him 
carry  through  reforms  of  such  importance  ;  consequently 
things  went  from  bad  to  worse,  and  the  Reformation  was 
soon  to  make  every  difficulty  tenfold. 

In  1 5 17  the  Pope  produced  a  fresh  scheme  for  a  Crusade  ; 
as  well  he   might,  having  himself  been    all  but  taken 

.  prisoner  by  a  Turkish  fleet  which  was  sweep- 

tempts  at  a  ing  the  coast  of  Italy  from  Pisa  to  Terracina. 
"^       ■  The  plan  was,  as  usual,  all  too  vast,  includ- 

ing as  it  did  the  enlistment  as  allies  of '  the  Sophi  of 
Persia,  Prester  John  of  the  Indies,  and  the  Kings  of 
Nubia,  Ethiopia,  and  Georgia.'  It  was  hoped  that  by 
these  strong  measures  it  would  be  possible  in  three  years, 
and  at  the  cost  of  12,000,000  ducats,  to  seize  and  fortify 
Mount  Zion  and  several  other  points  in  Palestine,  to 
invade  Turkey  from  the  side  of  Hungary  and  Poland,  to 


1515  The  War  of  Favia.  133 

support  Fez  and  Morocco  against  the  Turks,  to  reconquer 
Philippopolis  and  Adrianople,  and  then,  after  securing 
Euboea  or  Chalcedon  for  a  seaport,  to  crown  the  enter- 
prise by  the  seizure  of  Cairo,  Alexandria,  and  Constanti- 
nople. To  arrange  these  matters  Cardinal  Campeggio 
was  sent  to  England  as  legate  a  latere,  and,  after  some 
doubt  whether  English  law  would  recognise  him  in  that 
capacity,  was  welcomed  with  much  pomp.  But  Papal 
Crusades  were  not  believed  in,  and  neither  clergy  nor 
laity  would  vote  money  for  any  such  purposes ;  thus  the 
progress  of  the  Turks  remained  unchecked,  and  the  risk 
was  from  time  to  time  most  imminent  that  the  nations  of 
Europe  might  be  subdued  by  them.  Indeed,  though  such 
dangers  gradually  diminished,  they  were  brought  abso- 
lutely to  an  end  only  by  two  much  later  events,  the  great 
sea-fight  at  Lepanto  in  1571  and  Prince  Eugene's  land 
victory  over  the  Turks  at  Peterwardein  in  17 16. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  WAR   OF   PAVIA. 
I515-I527. 

On   succeeding    Louis  XII.  in  151 5,  Francis  I.  had  in- 
stantly resolved  on  a  career  of  military  enterprise,  feeling 
quite  unable  to  endure  the  loss  of  Milan  and 
the  exclusion  of  French  influence  from  Italy      j^  haiy^"*^ 
which  had  followed  the  death  of  Gaston  de      ?i'"!^°'^ 

Mangnano. 

Foix  in  1512.     An  application  from  Venice 
for  aid  against  the  tyranny  of  the  Spaniards,  Maximilian, 
and  the  Pope  served  as  a  plea  for  a  new  Italian  expedi- 
tion.    As  the  usual  descent  into  Italy  by  the  Mont  Cenis 
and  Susa  was  strongly  guarded  by  the  Swiss  mercenaries 


134  The  Early  Tiidors.  151 5 

of  Spain,  Francis,  after  collecting  his  army  at  Lyons,  was 
persuaded  to  cross  the  Alps  by  the  Val  Vraita,  leading 
from  Barcelonnette  to  Saluzzo,  the  head  of  which  is  even 
now  a  trackless  ridge  covered  with  loose  rocks.  Forcing 
its  way  thus,  in  spite  of  great  perils  and  losses,  to  the 
junction  of  the  Vraita  with  the  Po,  the  French  army 
appeared  in  Italy  as  if  it  had  dropped  from  the  skies  ;  and 
the  Swiss,  who  formed  the  greater  part  of  the  Spanish 
and  Papal  army,  retreated  in  some  confusion  on  Milan. 
Francis  was  prudently  trying  to  bribe  off  their  opposition 
when  his  plan  was  frustrated  by  the  arrival  of  20,000 
more  Swiss  from  the  St.  Gothard  under  Scheiner,  the  Car- 
dinal of  Sion,  a  bitter  enemy  of  the  French.  This  leader 
immediately  harangued  his  men,  reminding  them  that 
ever  since  the  fall  of  Charles  the  Bold  in  1477  they  had 
been  the  arbiters  of  Europe ;  that  no  sovereign  could 
either  move  or  stand  without  their  help  ;  and  that  if  they 
did  but  stretch  out  their  hands,  there  was  money  enough 
in  Francis's  military  chest  to  enrich  them  all  for  life,  and 
glory  enough  in  defeating  his  forces  to  prove  them  the 
most  redoubtable  nation  in  the  world.  With  these  and 
other  persuasions  he  induced  them  to  make  a  hurried 
attack  on  the  French,  who  were  ten  miles  from  Milan,  at 
the  village  of  Marignano.  The  battle  began  late  in  the 
evening,  and  before  dark  the  Swiss  had  gained  the 
superiority,  and  even  taken  fifteen  French  guns ;  but 
Francis  employed  the  night  in  posting  his  forces  afresh, 
and  supported  them  so  ably  with  his  remaining  artillery 
that  on  the  next  day  the  enemy,  with  all  their  valour, 
could  not  break  his  lines,  and  were  themselves  crushed 
by  charges  of  the  men-at-arms.  At  least  10,000  Swiss 
were  slain,  and,  what  was  more,  their  prestige  of  victory 
was  broken.  The  survivors  fell  grimly  back  on  Milan, 
and  then  retreated  to  their  own  country  in  consideration 


1516  The  War  of  Pavia.  135 

of  a  payment  from  Francis.  The  victory  was  decisive  ; 
for  the  Spanish  and  Papal  commanders  both  asked  for 
peace,  leaving  Milan  to  Francis  as  the  prize  of  his  few 
days'  campaign, 

Every  sovereign  of  Europe  envied  the  young  King  of 
France  the  glory  so  quickly  won  ;  Henry,  above  all, 
could  not  hide  his  chagrin  at  the  victory  which  had  so 
far  outdone  his  own  prowess.  '  His  eyes  were  so  red,' 
says  the  French  ambassador  Bapaume,  '  that  it  seemed 
as  if  the  tears  would  come.'  His  chagrin  was  the  greater 
because  both  he  and  the  Emperor  had  assumed  that 
Francis  would  certainly  come  to  grief  in  Italy.  In  vain 
did  the  nobles  around  him  urge  that  '  he  ought  to  be  glad 
that  Francis,  his  good  brother  and  ally,  had  defeated 
the  Swiss,  who  were  so  fierce  and  haughty  that  they 
presumed  to  call  themselves  the  rulers  and  correctors  of 
princes.'  Henry  confessed  that  he  ought  to  be  glad,  for 
that  the  Swiss  '  were  indeed  mere  villains,  and  he  had 
ever  known  them  as  such.'  However,  this  did  not  hinder 
him  from  sending  to  Switzerland  some  clever  agents 
charged  to  subsidise  both  Maximilian  and  the  Swiss  and 
to  excite  them  againt  France.  Money  never  came  amiss 
to  the  Emperor  ;  indeed,  in  this  case,  he  tried  to  possess 
himself  of  the  Swiss  subsidy  as  well  as  his  own,  and, 
after  leading  his  army  up  to  the  gates  of  Milan,  crowned 
all  by  accepting  200,000  crowns  from  the  French,  selling 
Verona  to  the  Venetians,  and  withdrawing  by  the  Valte- 
line  to  Trent  in  the  Tyrol.  As  the  bargain  with  France 
leaked  out,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  English  envoys, 
Tunstal  and  Knight,  exhort  Henry  to  '  close  his  purse  for 
the  future,  and  entertain  Maximilian  with  words  devised, 
thus  treating  the  Emperor  as  the  Emperor  treated  him.* 

In  the  following  February  (1516)  occurred  the  death 
of  Ferdinand  of  Aragon.     His   grandson    Charles  was 


136  The  Early  Tudors.  15 18 

now  King  of  all  Spain,  having  been  before  this  the  pos- 
,„  ,     ,  sessor  of  the  Netherlands,  Flanders,  Naples, 

Wolsey  s  .    .  .  '  I         > 

administra-  Sicily,  Artois,  and  Franche  Comte.  Thus 
the  chief  states  of  Europe  were  in  the  hands 
of  three  young  sovereigns,  Charles  being  sixteen  years 
old,  Francis  twenty-four,  and  Henry  twenty-five  ;  and  the 
rest  of  Henry's  reign,  so  far  as  it  was  concerned  with 
foreign  politics,  was  chiefly  occupied  in  hindering  alter- 
nately Francis  and  Charles  from  becoming  supreme  in 
Europe.  For  the  present  he  was  in  a  manner  friendly 
to  both.  He  lent  Charles  the  sum  necessary  for  his 
voyage  to  Spain,  and  when  he  was  thus  out  of  the  way 
gradually  made  overtures  to  Francis,  disarming  suspicion 
by  pretending  to  hate  him  beyond  measure.  One  strong 
inducement  to  this  was  Francis's  offer  to  pay  400,000 
crowns  for  the  restoration  of  Tournay.  Hence  Henry 
was  willing  in  1 518  to  go  so  far  as  to  marry  his  two-years- 
old  daughter  Mary  to  the  new-born  Dauphin  of  France. 
Accordingly  the  Admiral  Bonnivet  was  sent  over  to 
represent  the  Prince,  and  in  that  capacity  placed  a 
splendid  wedding-ring  on  Mary's  tiny  finger.  Little  ap- 
pears to  have  been  thought  of  the  risk  that  England 
might  thus  become  a  province  of  France  ;  probably  it 
was  assumed  that  Henry  and  Katherine  would  still  have 
sons.  Thus  Wolsey  had  succeeded,  for  the  time,  in 
placing  England  in  a  very  unassailable  position  as  regarded 
the  two  sovereigns.  The  time-honoured  requirement  of 
English  trade  was  peace  with  Charles  and  the  Nether- 
lands ;  but  the  engagements  with  Francis  were  too  elastic 
and  too  easily  repudiated  to  be  inconsistent  with  this 
main  purpose.  At  the  same  time  we  had  gained  the  power 
of  calling  France  to  our  help,  and  thus  secured  an  object 
still  higher,  that  of  freedom  from  Spanish  control.  In  any 
case  England  might  make  her  own  terms  for  aiding  either 


1 5 19  The  War  of  Pavia.  137 

of  the  great  rivals.  And  how  valuable  this  power  was 
appeared  when,  on  Maximilian's  death  in  15 19,  Charles  of 
Spain  was  elected  Emperor  against  the  competition  of  both 
France  and  Henry,  and  immediately  began  trying  to  en- 
list England  on  his  side.  For  Wolsey's  private  ambition 
also,  the  quasi-friendship  with  both  the  great  Powers  was 
very  desirable,  as  the  circumstances  might  put  it  in  the 
power  of  either  Charles  or  Francis  singly  to  make  him 
Pope  if  a  vacancy  occurred  during  a  war  ;  and  both  might 
agree  to  do  this  if  no  war  was  going  on  at  the  time. 
Meanwhile  the  Cardinal  toiled  on  as  usual  in  London. 
Business  had  always  been  his  forte  from  the  time  when 
he  had  been  first  recommended  to  Henry  by  his  speedy 
return  from  a  mission  to  France,  and  by  the  boldness  with 
which  he  had  faced  the  responsibility  of  filling  up  a  gap 
in  his  instructions.  All  matters  of  organisation  during  the 
late  wars  had  been  carried  out  by  him.  Now  he  was  at 
the  height  of  his  power,  the  whole  direction  of  home  and 
foreign  affairs  being  absolutely  in  his  hands.  As  Chan- 
cellor he  was  constantly  at  Westminster  Hall  or  the  Star 
Chamber,  judging  causes  in  a  manner  which  even  his  rivals 
could  not  help  admiring.  After  this  came  a  daily  multi- 
tude of  State  affairs,  whose  pressure  was  so  great  that  his 
friends  entreated  him,  though  in  vain,  to  do  no  business 
after  six  in  the  evening  for  his  health's  sake.  He  kept  a 
strong  hand  over  the  accounts  of  the  country,  so  that 
even  Henry's  wastefulness  was  in  a  measure  controlled  ; 
and  therefore  was  of  course  unpopular  with  those  who, 
like  Lord  Mountjoy,  had  congratulated  themselves  at 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  because  '  avarice  was  now  at 
an  end,  and  wealth  flowed  like  water.'  To  these  tasks 
were  added  his  duties  as  Cardinal  and  as  Papal  Legate 
a  latere.  Both  these  dignities  had  been  conferred  upon 
him  by  Henry's  express  desire — the  former  as  the  price  of 


138  The  Early  Tudors.  1520 

the  King's  joining  the  League  against  Francis  in  151 5,  the 
latter  as  the  only  condition  on  which  Campeggio  would  be 
received  in  15 17.  As  Legate,  his  rule  over  the  Church  in 
England  had  a  terrible  completeness  ;  for  his  jurisdiction 
extended  over  all  bishops,  superseded  all  privileges,  and 
was  final  for  all  appeals.  His  enemies  declared  that  he 
gained  his  influence  over  Henry  by  witchcraft,  so  com- 
pletely did  he  eclipse  Warham,  Fox,  Norfolk,  Suffolk, 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Council.  His  taste  for 
splendour  was  intuitive  ;  it  seemed  rather  a  part  of  his 
general  greatness  than  a  sign  of  vanity  that  he  should 
like  to  see  the  tapestries  of  his  ante-chambers  changed 
every  week,  to  have  round  him  curious  clocks  or  pictures 
by  Quentin  Matsys,  and  to  be  followed  by  many  attend- 
ants mounted  on  beautiful  and  well-trained  horses.  His 
choir  was  held  to  surpass  the  King's,  although  Sagu- 
dino  says  that  the  voices  in  the  Chapel  Royal  were 
more  divine  than  human ;  indeed  in  all  such  things 
he  seemed  to  aim  at  absolute  perfection.  Of  course 
this  demanded  vast  wealth,  and  he  was  not  precisely 
scrupulous  how  he  obtained  it.  But  he  was  still  more 
eager  to  obtain  money  for  the  King  ;  curious  proofs  of 
this  are  his  standing  out  for  an  unusual  proportion  of 
the  proceeds  of  Indulgences  in  England  in  1517,  and  his 
declaration  in  1525  that  he  considered  it  a  minister's 
duty  to  enrich  his  master  at  the  expense  of  the  people, 
'  as  Joseph  did  Pharaoh.' 

Hastening  back  from  Spain  for  the  purpose  in  the 
spring  of  1520,  the  young  Emperor  visited  England — thus 
performing,  in  the  eyes  ot  all  genuine  lovers  of  etiquette, 
an  act  of  extraordinary  condescension  to  Henry,  who  by 
Papal  ordinance  ranked  only  ninth  among  sovereigns. 
But  Charles  was  anxious  to  forestall  the  effect  of  the  per- 
sonal interview  between  Henry  and  Francis  which  had 


1520  The  War  of  Pavia.  139 

been  already  planned  for  the  ensuing  summer.  Accord- 
ingly he  landed  at  Dover  on  May  25,  was  visited  by 
Henry  there,  and,  like  a  dutiful  nephew,  returned  with 
him  to  Canterbury  to  visit  Katherine,  who  was  on  her 
part  wild  with  delight  at  seeing  the  head  of  her  own 
family  and  hearing  her  native  language  spoken.  The 
two  monarchs  held  much  secret  conference,  the  purport 
of  which  was  unknown  :  but  the  presence  of  the  Emperor, 
with  his  small  and  plainly-dressed  suite,  was  clearly  exer- 
cising a  powerful  influence,  and  we  shall  soon  see  that 
the  heartless  splendours  of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold 
were  quite  unable  to  counterbalance  it. 

When  the  Emperor  was  gone,  Henry  sailed  for  Calais 
(May  31),  Wolsey  having  obtained  a  promise  that  no 
French  war-vessel  should  leave  any  Channel 
port  as  long  as  the  interview  lasted.  The  for-  cioth  oi 
lorn  town  of  Guisnes  was  appointed  for  the  ^seiessness 
meeting,  but  the  English  architects  had  during 
the  preceding  weeks  raised  on  the  Castle  green  there  a 
splendid  summer  palace  328  feet  square,  pierced  after  the 
fashion  of  the  day  with  many  oriel  windows.  Its  entrance 
was  adorned  with  olive-crowned  statues  of  antique  ap- 
pearance, and  a  secret  passage  led  from  it  to  the  castle. 
Francis,  on  his  part,  had  imitated  in  a  distant  kind  of 
way  the  English  magnificence,  having  in  vain  asked  that 
costly  tents  should  be  forbidden  on  either  side ;  he  had 
also  proclaimed,  in  order  to  limit  his  suite,  that  none  of 
his  subjects  should  come  unbidden  within  two  leagues  of 
the  royal  procession.  When  the  signal  for  starting  was 
fired  from  Guisnes  and  answered  from  the  French  head- 
quarters at  Ardres,  there  was  a  moment's  anxiety.  Lord 
Abergavenny  declaring  that  Francis  had  brought  with 
him  twice  the  stipulated  number  of  soldiers ;  Henry, 
however,  readily  believed  that  his  men  were  frightening 


I40  The  Early  Tiidors.  1520 

the  French  quite  as  much,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  advance. 
The  sovereigns  embraced  first  on  horseback,  then  on 
foot,  while  the  EngUsh  made  the  best  use  possible  of 
their  few  words  of  French,  the  main  part  of  which  seems 
to  have  been  '  bon  amis.'  At  the  next  meeting  Henry 
laughed  outright  at  hearing  a  herald  describe  him  as 
King  of  France,  and  jovially  declared  this  to  be  '  a  very 
great  lie  indeed.'  On  June  11  the  jousts  began  and  were 
continued  for  a  week  ;  during  them  two  notable  events 
occurred,  the  death  of  a  French  knight  by  a  too  royal 
thrust  of  Henry's  lance,  and  Francis's  chivalrous  act  in 
coming  to  the  English  palace  at  breakfast-time  with  only 
four  attendants,  and  thus  deriding  the  precautions  which 
had  hitherto  guarded  their  interviews.  Such  was  in  out- 
ward seeming  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold :  of  the  in- 
ward heart-burnings  which  attended  it  no  record  has 
been  kept,  but  we  can  easily  imagine  the  feelings  of  those 
who,  like  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  Lord  Aber- 
gavenny, hated  the  whole  thing  as  Wolsey's  work,  and 
would  have  been  thankful  if  some  quarrel  had  sprung 
from  it  to  shake  his  power.  There  was  no  need  for  anxiety 
as  to  its  effect  in  strengthening  the  French  alliance  ;  for  it 
was  hardly  over  when  Henry  betook  himself  straight  to 
the  Emperor  at  Gravelines  to  renew  the  Canterbury  con- 
ference, not  vouchsafing  to  Francis  the  slightest  hint  of 
what  the  two  were  planning  together.  His  next  step  waste 
send  an  ominous  remonstrance  against  the  French  repairs 
of  the  Ardres  fortifications  :  '  was  his  good  brother  intend- 
ing to  disquiet  the  English  subjects  of  the  Pale?'  Of 
course  Francis's  right  was  clear  on  his  own  side  of  the 
boundary :  still  he  thought  it  better  to  yield,  in  the  hope 
of  at  least  delaying  Henry's  enmity.  Meanwhile  Charles's 
motives  for  conciliating  Henry  became  stronger  every 
day ;  the  cities  of  Spain  were  engaging  in  the  struggle  for 


1 52 1  The  War  of  Pavia.  141 

liberty  mentioned  in  Chapter  I.,  and  neither  from  thence 
nor  from  the  Netherlands  could  he  get  any  supplies  of 
money.  He  had  pledged  himself  to  hold  a  Diet  at 
Worms  in  the  course  of  the  year,  and  to  settle  there,  not 
only  the  Luther  affair,  but  all  the  outstanding  feuds  and 
disputes  of  Germany  ;  and  it  was  most  desirable  for  him  to  be 
in  Italy  and  hinder  the  consohdation  of  French  influence 
there.  To  accomplish  even  a  part  of  these  objects,  the 
alliance  of  England  was  indispensable ;  and  negotiations 
to  strengthen  it  were  therefore  going  on  apace,  when  the 
attention,  not  of  England  only,  but  of  the  foreign  powers, 
was  distracted  by  the  striking  episode  of  the  trial  and 
execution  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  in  May  1521. 

As  this  nobleman  was  descended  from  Thomas  of 
Woodstock,  the  sixth  son  of  Edward  111.,  his  royal  blood 
made  him  constantly  fret  against  Wolsey's  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^ 
domination.     His  anger  too  was  dangerous      Buckingham 

executed. 

from  his  powerful  connections;  for  he  had 
married  the  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland, 
Lord  Surrey  was  his  son-in-law,  and  Ursula  the  daughter 
of  Lady  Salisbury  his  daughter-in-law.  He  had  offended 
the  King  as  early  as  1 509  by  inducing  Sir  W.  Bulmer  to 
leave  the  royal  service  for  his  own,  and  had  also  excited 
suspicions  at  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold ;  charges 
were  now  brought  against  him  by  a  steward  named  Knevet 
whom  he  had  dismissed  (detaining,  it  is  said,  his  property 
unjustly),  and  by  Sir  Gilbert  Parke  his  chancellor  and 
others.  By  way  of  precaution  Northumberland  was 
arrested  and  Surrey  sent  to  Ireland  ;  then  the  Duke  him- 
self was  summoned  from  Thornbury  to  London,  and 
found  that  all  along  the  road  he  was  watched  by  armed 
men  at  a  distance.  On  arriving  in  London  he  tried  in 
vain  to  see  Wolsey,  and  was  presently  lodged  in  the 
Tower.     On  May  13  he  was  arraigned  before  the   Lord 


142  The  Early  Tudors.  1521 

High  Steward's  Court ;  and  the  depositions  were  read  and 
asserted  by  the  witnesses  to  be  true.  If  so,  they  certainly 
amounted  to  treason  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time  ; 
for  the  Duke  had  listened  to  prophecies  that  he  should 
soon  be  king,  and  rewarded  them  with  valuable  presents. 
This  appeared  to  throw  a  new  light  on  an  attempt  of  his 
to  get  the  King's  sanction  to  a  levy  of  troops  which  he 
thought  of  making  on  the  Welsh  border — perhaps  also 
on  some  presents  which  he  had  made  to  the  King's 
guardsmen.  He  was  also  sworn  to  have  said  that  the 
death  of  the  King's  children  was  a  judgment  for  the 
murder  of  Lord  Warwick,  and  that,  if  questioned  on  the 
Bulmer  affair,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  plunge  his  dagger 
into  Henry's  breast.  Of  course  none  of  the  trials  of  the 
time  can  inspire  any  real  confidence,  for  the  accused  had 
no  counsel,  and  could  not  cross-examine  or  bring  counter- 
evidence  ;  and  wherever  the  means  of  discovering  truth 
were  thus  neglected  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  '  sub- 
stantial justice'  was  generally  or  even  frequently  done. 
The  Duke  laboured  under  the  farther  difficulty  that 
Henry  had  let  it  be  known  before  the  trial  that  he  had 
gone  through  the  evidence  and  considered  him  guilty. 
It  is  said  that  Buckingham  admitted  some  of  the  charges 
while  in  the  Tower ;  at  any  rate  when  condemned  he 
refused  to  ask  for  mercy,  and  on  May  17  died  as  his 
father  had  died  in  1483.  Some  of  his  estates  were  after- 
wards given  back  to  his  son  Lord  Henry  Stafford,  who 
was  also  allowed  by  Edward  VI.  to  succeed  to  the  barony 
of  Stafford,  from  which  his  father  had  taken  one  of  his 
titles. 

While  the  trial  was  proceeding,  Francis  had  been 
pressing  on  the  war  in  Italy,  hoping  to  secure  himself 
there  while  Charles  was  still  embarrassed  by  the  revolt  of 
the  Spanish  cities.    The  Emperor  therefore  called  for  Eng- 


1 52 1  The  War  of  Pavia.  1 43 

lish  help  according  to  what  was  now  acknowledged  to 
have  been  the  last  year's  agrreement — namely, 

.  ^     ,  Henry  s 

that  England  should  help  whichever  of  the  treachery  to 
two  contending  parties  was  first  attacked 
by  the  other.  On  the  plea  that  it  was  necessary  to 
ascertain  which  was  the  aggressor,  Wolsey  was  sent  by 
way  of  Calais  to  the  Netherlands,  and  his  quasi-media- 
tion  was  made  to  occupy  not  less  than  four  months,  during 
which  we  were  preparing  for  war,  and  Francis  losing 
instead  of  gaining  ground  in  Italy.  On  his  return  Henry 
gave  him  the  rich  Abbey  of  St.  Albans  in  reward  for  his 
skilful  tactics.  And  it  seemed  that  these  would  also  win 
him  a  far  higher  prize,  inasmuch  as  the  news  of  Pope 
Leo's  death  arrived  towards  the  close  of  the  year,  and  so 
recent  a  service  to  the  Emperor  was  a  strong  claim  on 
his  support.  But,  in  spite  of  all  promises,  Charles  did 
very  little  in  his  favour,  and  the  choice  fell  on  Adrian  of 
Utrecht,  Charles's  tutor,  who  was  now  enthroned  as 
Adrian  VI.  It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  in  the  next 
Papal  election  (1523)  Charles  did  write  strongly  in 
Wolsey's  favour,  but  at  the  same  time  sent  orders  that 
the  courier  should  be  detained  till  the  new  Pope  was 
chosen. 

The  great  French  and  Spanish  war  of  1521  was  fierce 
and  deadly  beyond  all  precedent,  aiming  at  nothing  less 
than  the  complete  dismemberment  of  France.  When 
Henry  took  the  Spanish  side  openly  in  the  following 
June,  'Francis  was  called  upon  to  surrender  to  the  Empe- 
ror Burgundy,  Champagne,  Dauphine,  Lan- 
guedoc  and  Provence,  and  to  Henry  the  Isle  Pavi^^"^  °^ 
of  France,  Picardy,  Normandy,  and  Guienne  ; 
and  of  the  brutalities  committed  by  both  invaders  of 
France  we  may  judge  by  the  letters  of  Lord  Surrey  to  his 
master,  in  which  he  calmly  announces  that  'the  Boulon- 


144  The  Early  Tudors.  1523 

nais  is  so  burned  and  ravaged  that  the  French  have  good 
reason  to  be  angry.'  '  All  the  country,' he  continues, 'that 
we  have  passed  through  has  been  burned,  and  all  the 
strong  places  thrown  down.  When  we  have  burned  Dour- 
lens,  Corby,  Ancre,  Bray,  and  the  neighbouring  country,  I 
do  not  see  that  we  can  do  much  more.  The  Emperor's 
Council  are  willing  that  Hesdin  should  be  burnt,  which 
shall  be  done  within  three  hours.'  In  1523  Surrey  was 
superseded  and  the  army  placed  under  the  Duke  of  Suf- 
folk ;  it  approached  within  a  few  miles  of  Paris,  but  its 
sufferings  from  the  severe  winter  were  terrible,  many  sol- 
diers being  frozen  to  death,  and  others  losing  their  fingers 
or  toes.  It  was  impossible  to  persevere  under  such  diffi- 
culties, and,  for  the  second  time  in  the  reign,  an 
English  army  went  home  without  orders,  having  thus 
added  another  to  the  random  and  ineffective  military 
operations  which  mark  the  period.  The  war  went  on  with- 
out us,  and  produced  many  striking  events,  one  of  which 
was  the  capture  of  Francis  I.  by  the  Emperor's  generals  at 
Pavia.  After  relieving  Marseilles  from  its  siege  by  the 
Imperiahsts  in  the  autumn  of  1524,  Francis  had  resolved 
on  crossing  M.  Cenis  and  surprising  Milan,  which  was 
defended  by  only  16,000  of  Charles's  troops.  This  he 
effected  with  signal  success,  the  Spanish  garrison  re- 
treating to  the  Adda.  Instead  of  pursuing  and  finish- 
ing the  war  on  the  spot,  the  French  King  occupied  him- 
self for  three  whole  months  in  besieging  Pavia  on  the 
Tesino  ;  at  the  same  time  detaching  6,000  men  to  make 
a  diversion  on  Naples,  and  thus  leaving  his  army  no  more 
than  equal  to  the  enemy  in  numbers.  In  spite  of  this  he 
held  himself  bound  in  honour  to  persist  in  the  siege, 
because  he  had  declared  that  he  would  reduce  the  place 
or  die  in  the  attempt.  He  was  therefore  attacked  in  his 
position  by  Charles's  generals  from  the  outside,  while 


1524  The  War  of  Pavia.  145 

Leyva,  the  governor  of  the  city,  made  a  desperate  sally 
from  within.  The  double  shock  threw  the  French  army 
into  complete  disorder ;  first  its  Swiss  mercenaries  fled, 
then  a  well-arranged  attack  broke  its  cavalry.  Francis 
himself  lost  his  horse,  and  narrowly  escaped  being  killed 
by  some  Spanish  foot  soldiers  who  did  not  recognise  him. 
His  ruin  was  complete ;  for  ten  thousand  of  his  soldiers 
had  fallen,  and  he  himself  had  to  bear  a  long  and  bitter 
captivity  in  Spain  from  which  he  was  only  released  upon 
intolerably  hard  conditions. 

Among  those  who  fell  at  Pavia  was  a  leading  member 
of  the  House  of  York,  Richard  de  la  Pole,  the  younger 
brother  of  the  Lord  Lincoln  who  fell  at  Stoke.  Another 
consequence  of  the  Pavia  War  was  our  being  engaged  in 
a  new  struggle  with  Scotland,  to  which  Francis  had  again 
despatched  the  Duke  of  Albany  (1521)  in  order  to  keep 
up  the  French  interest  there.  Even  Margaret  herself 
now  took  that  side,  because  Henry  had  refused  to  sanction 
her  divorce  from  Angus,  whom  she  had  begun  to  detest 
most  heartily.  So  when  the  King  of  England  demanded 
Albany's  expulsion,  he  was  on  the  contrary  placed  at  the 
head  of  an  army  of  60,000  men  with  a  strong  artillery, 
and  sent  to  invade  England.  The  old  jealousy  against 
his  French  companions,  however,  prevented  anything  im- 
portant from  being  done  :  the  Scots  failed  in  the  siege  of 
Wark  Castle  and  then  retreated.  This  opened  the  way 
for  a  more  conciliatory  policy  ;  Henry  tried  all  means  for 
gaining  the  affection  of  the  young  King  his  nephew,  and 
even  thought  for  a  while  of  marrying  him  to  his  daughter 
Mary,  so  as  to  renew  the  old  sclieme  of  uniting  the  king- 
doms. But  such  a  measure  was  too  wise  and  wholesome 
for  the  times,  and  it  was  held  to  be  enough  for  the  present 
to  raise  up  a  party  in  Scotland  which  should  declare 
James  of  full  age  and  capable  of  governing.     This  plan 

K 


146  The  Early  Tudors.  1524 

succeeded,  and  in  August  1524  James  appeared  before  his 
nobles  with  sceptre  and  crown,  and  undertook  to  rule  the 
country  '  with  the  advice  of  his  most  beloved  mother  and 
the  Lords  of  the  Council.'  In  the  following  November 
this  step  was  sanctioned  by  an  Act  of  the  Scottish  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  hopes  of  France  in  that  country  were  for 
the  present  at  an  end. 

The  wars  at    this  time   appear  wanton    and  perverse 

in  themselves,  and  much  more  so  when  we  consider  how 

impossible  they  made  expeditions  to  which 

Turkish  ^   ^  ,,       ,  ,    ,  ■         c 

conquest  of  Europe  was  really  bound  by  every  tie  01 
^''°'*^'-  honour  and  interest.     Henry  VIII.,  like  his 

father,  was  the  official  protector  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John,  who  had  since  13 10  constantly  made  their  island 
of  Rhodes  the  outwork  of  Christendom  in  the  East.  Yet 
in  1523  he,  in  common  with  the  other  great  Powers, 
allowed  them  to  be  besieged  by  the  Sultan  Soliman  in 
person  without  raising  a  finger  to  help  them.  The  events 
of  the  siege  are  admirably  related  by  Nicholas  Roberts, 
a  member  of  the  Order.  The  Turks  had  1 50,000  men  at 
least,  and  the  besieged  not  more  than  6,000,  so  that  rest 
was  almost  impossible ;  even  the  Grand  Master,  the 
noble  risle  Adam,  slept  as  he  best  might  upon  the  ground. 
Numbers  of  huge  stone  balls  were  fired  into  the  city 
from  the  Turkish  mortars,  shattering  as  they  fell  with  an 
effect  like  that  of  shells ;  breaches  were  made  over  and 
over  again,  but  as  often  repaired  by  the  skill  of  the  engi- 
neer Martinengo.  After  a  while  the  Turks  began  a  system 
of  mines ;  yet  even  when  whole  bastions  were  blown 
into  the  air  the  Knights  continued  to  repulse  the  storming 
parties.  But  at  length  the  enemy  drove  horizontal  gal- 
leries 1 50  paces  within  the  walls,  and  a  breach  was  made 
which  thirty  horsemen  could  enter  abreast ;  then,  and  not 
till  then,  the   place  surrendered,  and    was  treated    not 


1523  The  War  of  Pavia.  147 

ungenerously  by  the  conqueror.  Transferred  by  Charles  V. 
in  1525  to  the  island  of  Malta,  the  Order  within  forty 
years  recovered  strength  for  the  equally  firm  and  more 
fortunate  defence  against  their  old  enemies  of  the  harbour 
and  walls  of  Valetta,  the  capital  of  their  new  domain, 
which  they  continued  to  occupy  till  the  island  was  taken 
by  Napoleon  in  1800. 

The  French  war,  however  useless  and  ineffective,  had 
of  course  to  be  paid  for  by  the  people  of  England  ;  and 
Wolsey  made  in   1523  the  terrible  demand 

•'  ,  ,  War  taxa- 

of  twenty-six  per  cent,  on  real  and  personal  tion  in 
property,  and  of  half  a  year's  income  from 
the  clergy.  It  was  estimated  that  this  would  produce 
about  800,000/.  ;  but  the  unwillingness  to  submit  to  such 
taxation  was  extreme.  Wolsey  himself  came  to  the 
House  of  Commons  to  argue  the  point,  and  Sir  Thomas 
More,  who  was  Speaker,  recommended  the  House  to  re- 
ceive him  '  with  all  his  pillar  and  pole-axe  bearers.'  '  The 
Cardinal,'  he  said,  'has  been  blaming  us  for  not  keeping 
our  debates  secret ;  we  can  turn  the  tables  upon  him  if 
he  brings  his  attendants  into  the  House,  and  runs  the  risk 
of  their  making  known  what  passes  in  it.'  When  the 
great  minister  had  made  his  speech,  there  was  a  complete 
silence.  On  his  asking  More  for  a  reply,  he  was  told  in 
the  most  respectful  language  that  it  was  the  manner  of 
his  Grace's  faithful  Commons  to  debate  matters  only 
among  themselves,  and  that  the  Speaker,  though  trusted 
beyond  his  deserts  by  the  House,  could  not  venture  to 
declare  their  views  without  an  express  commission  from 
them.  Except  by  this  spirited  declaration.  More  does 
not  seem  to  have  displeased  the  government  by  his 
conduct  in  the  debate,  and  about  half  the  sum  demanded 
was  voted  by  the  House.  An  exemption  was  given  to  the 
northern  counties  which  had  borne  the  burthen  of  the 


148  The  Early  Tudor s.  1525 

Scottish  war,  and  also  to  the  district  of  Brighthelmstone 
in  Sussex,  doubtless  because  the  place  had  been  burned 
by  the  French  in  15 14.  Even  with  these  deductions  the 
pressure  of  the  subsidy  was  simply  ruinous,  and  when  in 
1525  Wolsey  farther  proposed  to  raise  what  he  called  an 
'  Amicable  Loan,'  England  was  brought  to  the  verge  of  a 
Peasants'  War  like  that  which  was  horrifying  Germany  in 
the  same  year.  The  Kentishmen  complained  to  Warham 
that  as  the  subsidy  of  1523  was  not  yet  fully  paid  it  was 
too  bad  to  ask  for  more  money  already,  and  were  not 
mollified  by  his  reminder  that  'his  Majesty  was  born  in 
Kent.'  They  wept,  pleaded  poverty,  and  then  began  to 
'  speak  cursedly '  ;  '  there  would  be  no  rest  from  payments 
as  long  as  5^;7z,?^«,?  lived.'  Wolsey,  it  may  be  remarked,  was 
already  unpopular  in  that  county  for  suppressing  Tun- 
bridge  Priory  and  devoting  its  funds  to  his  new  college 
in  Oxford.  Strong  remonstrances  also  came  from  other 
quarters.  The  Bishop  of  Ely  wrote  to  say  that  there  was 
no  ready  money  in  his  diocese,  and  that  to  procure  it 
people  had  to  sell  their  cattle  at  half  its  value  ;  in  Nor- 
wich folks  tendered  their  spoons  and  salt-cellars  for  want 
of  cash,  and  there  was  every  appearance  that  the  cloth- 
makers  would  have  to  stop  work  and  dismiss  their  hands. 
In  an  interview  with  Wolsey,  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
reminded  him  of  Richard  IIL's  statute  against  benevo- 
lences, and  failed  to  see  the  force  of  his  reply  that  '  he 
wondered  his  Lordship  should  quote  the  law  of  a  bad 
King  who  murdered  his  nephews,  and  who,  being  also  an 
usurper,  could  not  make  laws  binding  a  legitimate  king.' 
But  the  end  was  that  the  Cardinal  was  struck  with  the 
arguments  alleged,  and  himself  persuaded  Henry  to 
allow  people  to  give  only  what  they  chose.  No  one  of 
course  came  forward,  and  the  benevolence  was  heard 
of  no  more.     Though  Wolsey  might  have  truly  said  that 


1 5?7  The  War  of  Pavia.  149 

it  had  been  no  plan  of  his,  yet  his  loyal  silence  left  its  un- 
popularity to  weigh  on  him  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the 
King  was  not  less  angry  that  the  scheme  had  failed 
than  the  people  were  that  it  had  been  attempted. 

After  the  battle  of  Pavia  the  European  war  still  went 
on  in  Italy;  hence  arose  in  1527  one  of  the  most  frightful 
catastrophes  of  the  Middle  Ages.  For  the 
Constable  Bourbon,  having  deserted  his  Rome" 
country  to  take  the  command  of  a  mixed 
force  belonging  to  Charles,  found  himself  unable  to  pay 
his  troops,  and  was  obliged  to  connive  at  all  their  excesses. 
At  last  they  forced  him  to  attack  Rome,  and  after  two  re- 
pulses made  their  way  into  the  Leonine  City  at  the  back 
of  St.  Peter's ;  as  Bourbon  himself  was  killed  in  the  assault 
(perhaps  by  a  shot  from  the  celebrated  sculptor  Benvenuto 
Cellini)  even  the  slight  control  which  he  might  have  exer- 
cised was  at  an  end.  The  Pope  and  Cardinals  just  es- 
caped into  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  and  then  had  the  gates 
closed  against  the  crowd  of  distracted  fugitives.  For  the 
twelve  next  days  the  city  suffered  the  most  indescribable 
horrors  ;  fanatical  German  Protestants,  renegade  Italians, 
and  ruthless  Spaniards  vying  with  one  another  in  the 
crimes  which  they  committed,  and  the  unhappy  people 
being  tortured  by  those  of  each  nation  in  turn  to  make 
them  produce  the  valuables  of  which  they  had  already 
been  robbed  by  the  others.  Clement  VII.,  who  had  been 
elected  Pope  in  1523,  remained  the  Emperor's  prisoner 
in  Rome  till  December,  when  he  escaped  in  disguise  to 
Orvieto.  Even  there  he  was  far  from  free  or  safe,  and 
the  next  chapters  will  show  the  important  consequences 
to  England  of  his  quasi-captivity. 


150  The  Early  Tudors.  1521 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  EARLY  REFORMATION  ABROAD.      THE  DIVORCE. 

FALL  OF  WOLSEY. 

1521-I53O. 

The  time  was  now  at  hand  when  differences  on  religion, 
which  had  for  many  years  only  slightly  influenced  English 

State  affairs,  were  to  become  all-powerful  both 
PapaUaws        ^^  changing  the  character  of  the  nation  and 

in  breaking  up  society  into  new  party  combi- 
nations. England  was  to  recall  all  the  memories  of 
former  struggle  with  the  Popes,  and  to  consolidate  them 
into  a  system  of  permanent  revolt.  The  existing  laws 
against  Papal  encroachment  were  neither  few  nor  unim- 
portant. The  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  (1164),  as  long 
as  they  were  in  force,  had  prohibited  appeals  to  Rome 
without  the  royal  consent.  Edward  I.'s  outlawry  of  the 
clergy  and  the  execution  of  Archbishop  Scrope  in  1405 
had  proved  that  priests  were  not  inviolable  ;  and  of  the 
three  great  statutes  of  Richard  11.,  that  of  Mortmain 
(1391)  limited  the  Church's  power  of  acquiring  property, 
that  of  Provisors  (1390)  protected  our  benefices  from 
being  filled  up  by  the  Pope,  and  that  of  Praemunire  (1393) 
vindicated  the  power  of  the  State  to  exclude  Bulls.  More- 
over a  statute  of  1395  forbade  the  exercise  in  England  of 
any  jurisdiction  derogatory  to  the  King's.  England  too 
was  inchned  to  the  anti-Papal  party  on  the  Continent, 
and  had  been  represented  at  the  Council  of  Constance, 
which  exercised  the  power  of  deposing  Popes ;  by  no 
means,  however,  endorsing  its  act   in   murdering  John 


1 521  The  Early  Reformation.  1 51 

Hus,  the  disciple  of  her  own  Wiclif,  as  was  shown  by  the 
already  noticed  escape  from  a  furious  London  mob  of  the 
Emperor  Sigismund,  who  had  given  and  broken  Hus's 
safe-conduct.  After  this,  English  opposition  to  Papal 
claims  had  flagged  for  a  time  ;  France  had  sided  with  the 
reforming  Council  of  Basle  in  1 431,  and  this  had  been 
thought  a  sufficient  reason  for  our  taking  the  other  side. 
Thus  was  shown  the  inherent  weakness  of  a  mere  political 
opposition  in  religious  matters.  It  was  liable  at  any 
moment  to  collapse,  because  while  the  Papal  practice 
was  unvarying,  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  State  affairs  were 
constantly  suggesting  fresh  combinations  which  made 
the  help  of  Rome  desirable,  and  therefore  induced  kings 
to  purchase  it  by  concessions  and  by  starving  Church  re- 
form in  the  manner  described  in  Chapter  VI.  Public  fury 
might  be  roused  for  awhile  by  some  instance  of  clerical 
exaction  or  immorality  ;  but  when  the  burst  of  feeling 
had  spent  itself  things  were  apt  to  settle  down  into  just 
their  former  condition.  There  was  as  yet  no  deep-seated 
and  burning  persuasion  that  such  evils  sprang  from  a  root 
of  falsehood,  and  would  end  only  when  its  last  fibres  were 
torn  from  the  soil. 

Fortunately  for  the  world,  however,  some  of  the  best 
intellects  living  had  now  for  years  been  concentrating 
themselves  on  religious  thought.  The  sim-  Forerunners 
pie  goodness  of  John  Hus  had  naturally  made       "<" 'he  Re- 

.  .  .  .  J  formation. 

a  deep  impression,  which  was  increased  by  Doctrine  of 
the  unparalleled  infamy  of  his  murder ;  and 
at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  his  disciples,  under  the 
name  of  the  '  Brothers  of  Unity,'  still  formed  200  churches 
in  Bohemia.  In  1489  this  body  decided  that  '  if  God  any- 
where raised  up  faithful  doctors  and  reformers  of  the 
Church,  they,  for  their  part,  would  make  common  cause 
with  them  ; '    nor   did  they  fail   to  keep  their  promise 


152  The  Early  Tudors.  1521 

when  the  time  came.  Elsewhere  similar  associations  were 
formed  on  semi-cathohc  principles ;  as  in  the  Nether- 
lands by  the  so-called  '  Brothers  of  the  Common  Lot ' 
(to  which  belonged  Thomas  a  Kempis,  the  celebrated 
author  of  the  '  Imitation  of  Christ ').  These  good  men 
lived  together  in  voluntary  communities  without  vows, 
and  devoted  themselves  to  preaching,  to  the  instruction  of 
the  young  in  Latin  and  Greek,  and  to  the  transcription  and 
printing  of  books.  They  held  that  the  Bible  contains  a 
sound  and  simple  doctrine  accessible  to  all,  and  evident 
of  itself  to  any  reader  without  great  pains  or  learned 
controversy.  It  is,  therefore,  they  thought,  open  to  all, 
and  should  not  be  forbidden — a  doctrine  which  drew  on 
them  the  strongest  opposition  from  the  Mendicant  Friars, 
who  were  also  aggrieved  at  their  being  only  half-monks, 
and  accepting  the  rule  of  no  Order.  In  England  there 
were  still  relics  here  and  there  of  an  even  exagger- 
ated LoUardism  ;  as  in  the  ten  inhabitants  of  Tenterden 
who  were  summoned  before  Warham  in  1511  for  main- 
taining that  the  elements  are  mere  bread  and  wine,  re- 
jecting baptism,  holding  confirmation  and  confession  to 
be  needless,  and  refusing  extreme  unction,  pilgrimages, 
and  saint-worship.  Sometimes  eminent  foreign  teachers, 
though  remaining  in  communion  with  the  Church,  aimed 
at  nothing  short  of  a  revolution  in  theology.  Such  was 
John  of  Goch,  who  about  the  year  1470  boldly  called 
Thomas  Aquinas  the  '  prince  of  error,'  and  was  before 
Erasmus  in  maintaining  that  monastic  vows  are  so  far 
from  indicating  a  higher  religious  standard,  that  they  are 
tolerable  only  as  supports  to  those  who  cannot  do  their 
duty  without  them.  With  still  greater  boldness  the 
celebrated  Wessel,  who  died  in  148 1,  had  maintained 
that  the  '  treasure  of  good  works '  has  not  been  left 
to  be  distributed  by  Papal  Indulgences  on  earth,  since 


1 521  The  Early  Reformation.  153 

Scripture  says  of  the  dead  that  '  their  works  do  follow 
them.'  He  had  also  taught  that  the  Fathers'  inter- 
pretations of  the  Bible  are  not  the  work  of  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  that  the  monastic  state  is  not  favourable  to 
salvation ;  and  that  Christ  has  left  no  vicegerent  on 
earth.  All  this  shows  us  how  open  men's  minds  had 
long  been  to  the  notion  of  deeply-seated  Church  abuses, 
and  how  ready  the  world  was  for  thinkers  like  Erasmus, 
especially  for  those  of  his  works  which  simphfied  Bible 
interpretation.  It  is  highly  remarkable  that  the  starting- 
point  of  all  wholesomer  ideas  of  religion  was  both  in 
England  and  abroad  that  preference  for  family  over 
monastic  life  which  made  Sir  Thomas  More's  house- 
hold what  it  was,  which  dictated,  as  we  have  seen, 
Colet's  arrangements  for  the  government  of  his  school, 
and  which  formed  so  large  a  part  of  the  teaching  of 
Erasmus,  Goch,  Wessel,  and  Luther.  It  was  not  acci- 
dent but  the  very  spirit  of  the  time  which  made  the 
young  Luther  in  his  cell  at  Erfurt  dwell  with  such 
delight  on  the  history  of  Hannah  and  Samuel,  and 
declare  that  he  wanted  no  more  happiness  than  to  be 
always  reading  of  such  fathers,  mothers,  and  children. 
The  notion  being  once  conceived  that  the  very  ideal  of 
holiness  had  been  distorted  in  this  main  point,  many 
farther  steps  were  easy ;  might  not  other  Church  maxims 
be  equally  groundless,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  power  of 
priestly  absolution  apart  from  real  change  and  enlighten- 
ment of  the  soul  ?  And,  above  all,  might  it  not  be  true 
that  all  the  evils  and  superstitions  of  the  Church  had 
sprung  from  forgetfulness  of  the  true  old  religion,  that  of 
enthusiasm,  the  religion  of  St.  Paul  and  of  Augustine, 
which  looked  for  justification  not  in  anything  which  we 
do  or  can  do,  but  in  faith  only,  a  strong  and  converting 
faith   founded  on  denial  of  self  and  the  acceptance  of 


154  The  Early  Tudors.  152 1 

Christ's  redemption  ?  This  and  this  alone,  Luther  began 
to  think,  could  give  value  to  the  moral  life  by  quickening 
and  spiritualising  action.  Our  deeds  are  accepted  not 
for  anything  in  themselves,  but  in  proportion  as  they 
express  and  as  it  were  utter  this  faith.  Hence  all 
merely  formal  modes  of  obtaining  God's  favor  appeared 
to  Luther  anti-Christian;  consequently  when  in  1517  the 
Pope's  agent,  Tetzel,  ventured  to  offer  Indulgences  for 
sale  close  to  his  own  parish  of  Wittemberg,  he  could  not 
but  make  his  celebrated  protest,  as  Hus  had  done  before 
him.  For  the  theory  of  these  documents  was  the  very 
antithesis  to  that  on  which  he  considered  all  religion  to  be 
founded  ;  according  to  them  something  of  the  nature  of 
a  spiritual  gift  might  be  obtained  without  any  spiritual 
condition  whatever.  They  did  not  indeed  profess  to 
take  away  sin — this  belonged  to  the  Power  of  the  Keys, 
which  was  different  from  that  of  Indulgence — but  they 
did  assert  that  any  one  in  the  outward  communion  of 
the  Church  might,  by  paying  a  small  sum,  and  (it  was 
expressly  said)  without  any  other  condition,  obtain  parti- 
cipation in  all  good  works  done  by  the  Church  Militant, 
and  also  the  relief  of  departed  souls  from  purgatory.  By 
1520  Luther,  having  much  cleared  and  strengthened  his 
views  by  the  study  of  Greek,  had  farther  come  to  maintain 
that  both  Councils  and  Fathers  might  err  concerning 
doctrine,  and  was  expressing  his  high  admiration  for 
Melanchthon,  who  denied  transubstantiation  and  the 
sacerdotal  theory.  He  also  saw  objections  to  the  seven 
sacraments  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  treated  the 
Pope's  infallibility  as  an  arrogant  pretension.  In  that 
year  he  also  declared  against  auricular  confession  and 
the  refusal  of  the  Cup  to  the  laity,  published  in  October 
his  book  on  the  '  Babylonish  Captivity  '  of  the  Church,  and 
on  the  loth  of  December  burned  at  the  gate  of  Wittemberg 


1 52 1  The  Early  Reformation.  1 55 

the  Pope's  Bull  of  condemnation.  On  April  19th,  1521, 
he  appeared  by  the  Emperor's  command  before  the  Diet 
at  Worms,  and  declined  to  retract  his  theological  opinions 
unless  convinced  out  of  the  Bible  ;  thus  creating  among 
the  German  princes  a  strong  enthusiasm  in  his  favour. 
He  was,  indeed,  by  the  single  act  of  Charles  placed 
under  the  ban  of  the  Empire;  yet  in  spite  of  much 
pressure  from  those  who  wished  to  repeat  the  Constance 
tragedy  by  burning  the  new  heretic  and  throwing  his 
ashes  into  the  Rhine,  his  safe-conduct  was  not  violated 
as  that  of  Hus  had  been.  A  few  weeks  later  the  Elector 
of  Saxony,  his  own  sovereign,  had  no  difficulty  in  arresting 
him  coUusively  and  concealing  him  in  the  safe  retreat  of 
the  Wartburg,  a  castle  close  to  Eisenach. 

Before  the  end  of  1521  Henry  VIII.  wrote  his  book 
on  the  Seven  Sacraments  in  answer  to  Luther's  '  Baby- 
lonish Captivity,'  and  for  this  Pope  Leo  gave  H^^^y  vill. 
him  the  title  of  '  Defender  of  the  Faith.'    The       Defender  of 

the  Faith. 

King,  it  seems,  considered  that  the  new 
doctrines  were  making  their  way  in  his  own  kingdom, 
and  was  thus  stimulated  to  authorship.  It  is  certain 
that  Luther's  works  were  read  in  Oxford  and  elsewhere 
at  the  time;  for  Archbishop  Warham  as  Chancellor 
thought  it  necessary  in  the  same  year  to  order  a  search 
for  them  in  the  University.  Similar  enquiries  were  set 
on  foot  in  the  diocese  of  Hereford,  and  Bishop  Fisher 
preached  an  anti-Lutheran  sermon  in  St.  Paul's,  at 
which  some  German  merchants  had  to  do  penance  for 
eating  meat  on  Friday.  Henry  uses  against  the  here- 
siarch  the  customary  arguments  :  Was  it  conceivable 
that  not  only  Pope  Leo,  whose  character  was  so  high,  but 
all  other  holy  Popes  were  in  error  when  they  enjoined 
Indulgences?  and  was  the  Church  to  believe  that  so 
many  teachers,  by  whom  and  at  whose  graves  miracles 


156  The  Early   Tudors.  1526 

had  been  done,  should  be  after  all  in  error  as  to  the 
Papal  power,  and  that  a  mere  '  fraterculus  '  was  born 
to  set  them  right.  Considering  the  resemblance  of 
these  arguments  to  the  after-reasonings  of  Sir  Thomas 
More  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  statement  that 
at  least  one  illustrious  convert  was  brought  over  to  a 
belief  in  the  Pope's  supremacy  by  the  very  controversialist 
who  was  afterwards  to  behead  him  for  retaining  it. 

So  far  as  it  could  be  proved  by  zeal  in  controversy, 
Henry's  orthodoxy  may  therefore  be  considered  as  be- 
yond question.     As  he  had  fought  for  the 
of  the  Pope  in  the  days  of  the  Holy  League,  so  he 

questbn.  argued  for  him  now.     But  '  all  these  fences 

and  their  strong  array '  were  to  be  scattered 
to  the  winds  by  one  violent  temptation.  His  wife  Queen 
Katherine  had  for  some  time  been  distasteful  to  him  from 
age  and  other  reasons  ;  and  either  the  remembrance  of 
the  secret  protest  which  his  father  had  caused  him  to  make 
against  his  betrothal  in  1496  or  some  other  evil  suggestion 
brought  to  his  mind  the  notion  that  his  marriage  had 
been  unlawful  from  the  first.  It  has  been  maintained  that 
the  first  hint  came  in  1 526  from  the  Bishop  of  Tarbes,  who 
in  one  of  the  manifold  negotiations  for  the  Princess 
Mary's  marriage  had  expressed  some  doubts  of  her 
legitimacy.  It  is  not,  however,  uncharitable  to  say  that 
dates  prove  passion  and  not  policy  to  have  suggested 
the  notion.  For  from  the  time  when  the  young  and 
beautiful  Anne  Boleyn  appeared  at  Court  in  1 522  on  her 
return  from  France,  her  father.  Sir  Thomas  Boleyn,  had 
received  a  shower  of  honours  and  profitable  employments 
such  as  nothing  but  a  strong  fancy  on  the  King's  part  for 
his  daughter  would  be  enough  to  account  for.  It  is 
therefore  superfluous  to  discuss  Henry's  alleged  qualms 
of  conscience  as  to  his  marriage,  and  his  misgivings  that 


1527  The  Divorce.  157 

God  had  warned  him  of  its  unlawfulness  by  the  death  of 
so  many  of  his  children  in  infancy.  However  strong  and 
even  sincere  these  may  have  become  at  last,  their  first 
origin  is  perfectly  plain.  Wolsey  seems  first  to  have 
realised  the  King's  intentions  in  1 527  ;  and  the  Cardinal's 
manner  of  seconding  them  justly  earned  all  the  mis- 
fortunes which  it  afterwards  brought  upon  him.  He  first 
advised  Henry  to  put  away  Katherine  by  his  own  au- 
thority, giving  as  a  reason  that  she  had  been  married  to 
Arthur  in  facie  ecclesice,  and  that  after  this  no  more  could 
be  said — she  could  not  thenceforward  be  her  brother-in- 
law's  wife,  all  appearances  notwithstanding.  As  the  King 
thought  this  plan  likely  to  fail,  Wolsey  next  lent  himself  to 
a  shameless  mockery  of  law,  collusively  citing  the  King 
to  appear  before  himself  as  Legate  and  Warham,  and  to 
answer  for  his  misdemeanour  in  cohabiting  with  his  sister- 
in-law  for  eighteen  years.  The  idea  seems  to  have  been 
that  this  might  be  enough  to  make  Katherine  yield  at 
once ;  as  she  never  thought  of  such  an  act  of  weakness, 
the  hypocritical  procedure  came  to  an  end  of  itself,  and 
it  then  became  necessary  to  appeal  to  the  Pope,  since 
Katherine  certainly  would  at  last.  It  seemed  for  many 
reasons  safe  to  do  so,  for  such  a  supporter  of  the  Papacy  as 
Henry  would  surely  not  be  refused.  Nor  were  precedents 
hard  to  find  either  abroad  or  at  home.  Both  the  daughters 
of  Louis  XL  had  been  divorced  ;  and  in  Scotland  Henry's 
own  sister  had  since  1526  been  striving  not  unsuccessfully 
to  be  set  free  from  her  husband  Lord  Angus  on  the 
impudent  plea  that  James  IV.  was  not  killed  at  Flodden, 
but  lived  till  after  her  second  marriage.  Moreover  the 
first  nobleman  at  the  English  Court,  the  Earl  of  Suffolk, 
had,  as  Mr.  Brewer  remarks,  twice  committed  bigamy 
and  been  three  times  divorced,  his  first  wife  having 
been  his  aunt  and  his  last  his  daughter-in-law.     With 


158  The  Early  Tudors.  1527 

such  instances  full  in  view,  what  fear  could  there  be  of 
failure  ? 

But  Wolsey  had  neglected  to  allow  for  the  one  decisive 
circumstance  that  Pope  Clement  had  been  taken  prisoner 
by  Charles's  army  just  a  month  before  Henry  thought 
of  applying  to  him,  and  that,  if  he  decided  against  the 
Emperor's  aunt,  there  was  every  chance  of  a  second  sack 
of  Rome.  The  unhappy  pontiff  tried  to  gain  time  by 
twice  sending  dispensations  which  would  not 
to  England  work ;  and  it  was  only  on  a  third  embassy  from 
England  that  something  like  an  agreement 
was  arrived  at.  In  order  that  Wolsey  might  not  bear  the 
whole  odium  of  the  transaction,  Cardinal  Campeggio  was 
to  act  as  Papal  Commissioner  along  with  him.  Even  thus 
much  concession  was  dangerous  to  the  Pope  ;  besides 
which  there  was  no  little  fear  of  disorder  in  England, 
where  the  sound  instincts  of  the  people  were  all  for 
Katherine  and  passionately  against  her  rival.  An  un- 
popular war  with  Charles  was  plainly  in  the  air  ;  for  Henry 
had  sent  him  a  defiance  on  hearing  of  the  sack  of  Rome, 
and  had  forced  Wolsey  once  more  to  transfer  the  English 
staple  to  Calais.  All  this  threw  trade  into  still  further 
disorder,  and  that  just  at  a  time  when  several  harvests 
had  been  bad.  The  cloths  of  Essex,  Kent,  Wiltshire, 
Suffolk,  and  other  counties  found  no  sale.  Formidable 
disturbances  again  arose  in  Kent ;  the  rioters  declaring 
that  they  would  seize  the  Cardinal  and  place  him  on  the 
sea  in  a  leaky  boat.  The  continued  suppression  of  small 
monasteries  had  added  to  his  unpopularity,  as  had  also 
the  search  which  he  had  ordered  for  Lutheran  books ; 
nor  was  he  in  high  favour  even  with  Henry  himself, 
having  offended  him,  apparently  through  inadvertence, 
with  regard  to  a  trifling  appointment  in  which  Anne 
Boleyn  was    interested.     There    was    also   difficulty  in 


1528  The  Divorce.  159 

finding  an  opportunity  of  justifying  himself,  since  Henry, 
in  alarm  at  finding  Anne  attacked  with  the  sweating 
sickness,  was  hurrying  from  one  house  to  another  in 
unkingly  fear  for  his  own  safety. 

On  arriving  in  London  (October  17,  1528)  Campeggio 
discussed  a  proposal  that  the  Queen  should  retire  to  a 
religious  house,  on  condition  that  if  no  son  was  born 
from  any  other  marriage,  her  daughter  should  succeed  to 
the  throne;  but  Katherine  would  not  hear  of  the  ar- 
rangement. He  then  intimated  that  he  must  Commission 
report  to  the  Pope  before  he  judged  the  case  ;  of  Cam- 
in  fact  he  was  being  constantly  urged  by  no 
means  to  omit  this,  as  the  Emperor  was  advancing  on 
Italy  and  a  false  step  might  be  ruinous.  Meanwhile 
Katherine's  enemies  were  plotting  against  her  in  many 
ways ;  her  Flemish  advocates  were  ordered  to  leave  the 
kingdom  before  the  trial ;  she  was  accused  of  popularising 
herself  and  thus  causing  conspiracies  against  her  husband ; 
attempts  were  made  to  get  away  from  her  a  paper  most 
important  to  her  cause  ;  it  was  threatened  that  her  daughter 
should  not  be  allowed  to  see  her  ;  and  Mary's  establish- 
ment was  broken  up  on  pretence  of  economy,  while  Anne 
was  brought  to  live  in  the  Palace.  All  the  time  Campeg- 
gio did  not  tell  even  Wolsey  what  his  commission  from 
the  Pope  really  was ;  but,  as  this  reserve  was  not  generally 
known,  delays  were  attributed  to  the  minister,  and  his 
power  began  to  crumble  under  him.  Things  got  still 
worse  when  seven  months  passed  without  any  step  being 
taken  towards  a  decision.  At  length  the  case  took  a 
more  definite  shape ;  for  Charles  being  manifestly  re- 
solved on  supporting  his  aunt  to  the  uttermost,  the 
Pope  was  obliged  to  receive  Katherine's  protest  against 
her  judges,  and  determined  on  revoking  the  cause — that 
is,  on  reserving  it  for  his  own  consideration.     It  therefore 


l6o  The  Early  Tudors.  1529 

became  an  object  for  the  promoters  of  the  divorce  to  get 
the  Legatine  Court  held  in  London  before  the  revocation 
arrived;  and  it  was  opened  on  the  21st  of  June,  1529.  At 
this  session  the  well-known  scene  took  place  ;  the  Queen 
knelt  at  Henry's  feet,  besought  him  to  have  pity  on  her 
as  a  poor  woman  and  a  stranger  born  out  of  his  do- 
minions, and  urged  him  to  consider  her  own  honour  and 
her  daughter's,  and  that  of  the  Spanish  nation  and  her 
relatives.  Finally  she  informed  him  and  the  assembly 
that  she  had  appealed  directly  to  the  Pope,  before  whom 
it  was  only  reasonable  that  the  cause  should  be  decided, 
without  partiality  or  suspicion  :  to  Rome  only  would  she 
make  her  answer.  She  then  left  the  room,  and  being 
thrice  summoned  in  vain  to  return,  was  declared  '  con- 
tumacious.' The  next  sessions  of  the  Court  were  for 
taking  evidence ;  on  the  28th  the  aged  Bishop  Fisher, 
the  faithful  servant  of  Henry's  family  for  three  genera- 
tions, appeared  to  maintain  that  Katherine's  marriage  was 
indissoluble,  seeing  that  every  defect  in  its  legality  had 
been  made  good  by  dispensations  which  the  Pope  was 
perfectly  competent  to  give.  He  ended  by  putting  in 
for  the  information  of  the  Court  a  book  which  he  had 
written  on  the  subject.  Great  was  the  astonishment  at 
this  act  of  boldness,  and  at  the  fervour  and  eloquence 
with  which  the  old  man  pressed  his  view.  The  judges 
replied,  lamely  enough,  that  it  was  not  his  business  to 
pronounce  so  decidedly  on  the  cause,  as  it  had  not  been 
committed  to  him  ;  but  Henry  himself  made  up  for  all 
deficiencies  by  a  reply  still  extant,  which  bears  unques- 
tionable marks  of  the  royal  style.  'I  never  thought. 
Judges,*  says  this  document,  '  to  see  the  Bishop  of 
Rochester  taking  upon  himself  the  task  of  accusing  me 
before  your  tribunal — an  accusation  more  befitting  the 
malice  of  a  disaffected  subject  and  the  unruly  passions 


1529  The  Divorce.  161 

of  a  seditious  mob  than  the  character  and  station  of 
a  bishop.  Why  has  he  kept  silence  for  so  many- 
months,  and  then  declared  his  opinion  thus  unseason- 
ably ?  It  would  have  been  more  dutiful  to  begin  by 
private  admonition,  and  thus  avoid  discrediting  both 
the  King  who  is  pressing  for  the  divorce  and  the  Pope 
who  has  been  entertaining  the  question.  And  what 
need  was  there  to  talk  of  maintaining  the  truth  even 
to  the  fire,  as  if  any  harsh  measures  had  ever  been 
taken,  or  were  likely  to  be  taken,  against  the  Queen's 
defenders  ? ' 

Through  the  greater  part  of  July  the  cause  dragged 
on,  Campeggio  getting  constantly  more  and  more  un- 
willing to  decide  it,  because  the  Emperor's  agents  were 
constantly  pressing  the  Pope  in  opposition  to  Henry's 
wishes,  and  thus  keeping  him,  as  he  said,  '  between  the 
hammer  and  the  anvil.'  The  23d  of  July  was  at  last  ap- 
pointed for  the  decision  ;  and  Henry  was  present  to  hear 
it.  To  his  utter  disgust,  Campeggio  only  said  that  the 
Roman  Courts  always  had  vacation  from  the  end  of  July 
to  the  beginning  of  October,  and  that  he  must  therefore 
adjourn  the  case  till  the  next  term  began.  As  July  was 
not  yet  over,  this  of  course  signified  that  the  sentence,  if 
given  in  London,  would  require  a  farther  process  at  Rome ; 
and  it  more  than  implied  that  the  Legatine  Court  was 
now  sitting  for  the  last  time,  seeing  that  the  revocation 
would  certainly  arrive  before  October.  '  No  good  ever 
came  of  Cardinals  in  England ! '  cried  Suffolk  with  an 
oath.  'You  at  least  should  not  say  so,'  rejoined  Wolsey 
quietly,  '  for,  Cardinal  as  I  am,  your  head  would  have 
fallen  on  the  scaffold  but  for  me !'  But  in  spite  of  this 
spirited  reply,  he  knew  well  that  the  words  just  spoken 
by  Campeggio  were  the  signal  for  his  destruction ;  and 
it  was  not  long  before  the  tempest  was  upon  him. 

L 


1 62  The  Early  Tudors.  1529 

The  attack  took  the  strange  form  of  a  prosecution 
directed  against  him  by  royal  permission  in  the  Court 

of  King's  Bench  for  having  exercised,  in  vio- 
Wois°ey.  lation  of  the  statute  of  1395  aheady  referred 

to,  thelegatine  jurisdiction  which  Henry  had 
invoked  ;  and  this  involved  a  writ  of  prceinunire  with  the 
forfeiture  of  all  his  property  to  the  King.  Nor  was  Henry 
restrained  by  any  feelings  of  honour  or  delicacy  from 
pressing  his  claim  to  the  uttermost,  though  the  case  was 
much  as  if  Charles  I.  had  of  himself  broken  with  Strafford 
and  taken  pains  to  get  him  prosecuted  for  the  illegal 
things  which  they  had  done  and  planned  together,  or 
George  III.  punished  Lord  North  for  his  own  obstinate 
enmity  to  America,  The  Cardinal  was  ordered  at  once 
to  give  up  the  Great  Seal,  which  passed,  much  shorn  of  its 
power,  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Thomas  More ;  the  Dukes 
of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  as  President  and  Vice-President 
of  the  Council,  were  to  do  much  of  what  had  been  Wolsey's 
work.  His  experience  of  his  master  induced  him  to  sub- 
mit at  once,  and  to  sign  a  paper  confessing  that  he  had 
vexed  many  of  the  King's  subjects  by  his  proceedings  as 
Legate,  and  deserved  to  suffer  imprisonment  at  the  royal 
pleasure ;  he  accordingly  prayed  Henry  to  take  into  his 
hands  all  his  temporal  possessions  and  benefices.  His 
reason  for  thus  abandoning  all  defence  was,  as  he  after- 
wards explained,  that  Henry,  after  once  getting  possession 
of  his  property,  would  do  anything,  however  harsh,  rather 
than  resign  it  again  ;  consequently,  even  if  he  were 
acquitted  on  this  charge,  others  would  be  brought  against 
him,  and,  if  found  guilty  on  any  one  of  them,  he  would 
certainly  be  sentenced  to  perpetual  imprisonment.  Having 
arranged  for  the  delivery  to  the  royal  officers  of  York 
Place  (the  modern  Whitehall)  and  all  that  it  contained,  the 
Cardinal  went  by  water  to  Putney  on  the  way  to  Esher,  to 


1529  Fall  of  Wolsey.  163 

which  he  had  been  ordered  to  withdraw ;  and  thousands 
of  boats  thronged  the  river  to  see  the  outward  signs  of 
the  great  minister's  fall.  At  Esher  he  remained  almost 
destitute  for  some  weeks,  paying  his  servants'  wages 
with  money  borrowed  from  his  chaplains.  But  even 
while  thus  degraded  and  impoverished,  he  was  hardly 
less  formidable  to  his  enemies  than  when  his  power  was  at 
the  highest.  So  well  known  was  his  administrative  talent, 
that  it  hardly  required  Henry's  frequent  taunts  as  to  the 
blundering  way  in  which  business  was  now  done  to  make 
Norfolk  and  Suffolk  apprehend  that  on  the  first  great 
emergency  he  would  be  recalled  to  office  and  revenge  him- 
self on  those  who  had  ill-treated  him.  Accordingly  they 
fretted  him  continually  with  small  affronts,  hoping  that  he 
might  thus  be  goaded  to  some  unseemliness  of  language 
or  action.  Day  by  day  he  was  either  informed  of  some 
new  charge  against  him  or  robbed  of  more  property. 
We  read  with  amazement  that,  just  after  a  cheering 
message  which  Henry  sent  him  at  Christmas  when  he 
was  seriously  ill,  the  Council  persuaded  the  King  that  a 
gallery  lately  erected  at  Esher  would  be  a  suitable  orna- 
ment for  the  palace  at  Westminster,  and  that  accordingly 
the  work  was  torn  away  before  its  owner's  face.  A  Bill 
was  pressed  on  in  Parliament  making  him  incapable  of 
serving  the  Crown;  but  it  fell  through  at  the  prorogation. 
The  next  best  thing  was  to  banish  him  as  far  as  possible 
from  Henry's  presence;  and  with  this  object  the  Council 
refused  his  request  to  be  allowed  to  retire  to  Winchester, 
and  insisted  that  he  should  go  to  York,  '  the  place  from 
which  he  had  his  honour.'  Winchester  was  given  to 
Gardiner,  except  a  pension  of  i  ,000/.  a  year  for  Wolsey. 
At  the  same  time  the  courtiers  secured  for  themselves  a 
number  of  assignments  out  of  his  other  benefices,  and 
the    King  tried   very  hard  to   secure  that   his   pensions 


164  The  Early  Tudor s.  1530 

from  foreign  Powers  should  for  the  future  be  paid  to  him- 
self On  the  1 2th  of  February,  1530,  a  formal  pardon  was 
given  him,  together  with  about  6,000/.  of  his  property. 
As  soon  as  the  roads  were  fit  for  travelling,  he  started 
for  the  north  (April  15)  by  way  of  Royston,  Peterborough, 
and  Southwell,  the  last  a  dependency  on  the  see  of 
York.  Both  on  the  way  and  during  his  short  residence  at 
Southwell  the  goodwill  of  the  gentry  towards  him  was 
strongly  manifested.  Sir  WiUiam  Fitzwilliams,  whom  he 
had  supported  in  a  struggle  against  the  Corporation  of 
London,  received  him  at  his  house  near  Peterborough 
with  the  most  generous  affection.  In  starting  from 
Southwell  he  had  to  rise  before  day  to  escape  from  the 
friendliness  of  those  who  wished  '  to  lodge  a  great  stag  or 
twain  '  for  his  amusement  by  the  way.  His  first  occu- 
pation on  arriving  at  his  own  seat  of  Cawood  Castle  was 
to  hold  a  confirmation  of  children,  which  he  continued, 
like  Wulstanof  old,  till  he  almost  dropped  with  exhaustion. 
He  also  succeeded  in  setting  at  rest  a  feud  between  two 
neighbouring  gentry,  expostulating  not  with  them  only 
but  with  their  turbulent  retainers.  He  listened  with 
kindness  to  the  claim  of  the  Dean  and  Canons  that  he 
should  not  enter  the  choir  of  Yorkminster  till  he  was 
formally  installed  as  Archbishop,  but  directed  that  the 
ceremony  should  be  less  magnificent  than  they  had 
intended — refusing,  in  particular,  to  have  cloth  laid  down 
as  usual  from  the  city  gate  to  the  cathedral.  Of  all  the  trials 
inflicted  on  him  the  hardest  to  bear  was  the  treatment 
of  his  colleges.  As  he  had  founded  them  before  the 
prcEimmire,  the  Judges  held  unanimously  that  they  had 
lapsed  to  the  Crown ;  therefore  the  King  confiscated  the 
property  of  that  at  Ipswich,  and  seemed  inclined  to  do 
the  same  with  regard  to  Cardinal  College  or  Christchurch, 
Oxford.     For  this  noble  foundation  Wolsey  pleaded  in  a 


1530  ^<^^i  of  Wohcy.  165 

tone  which  he  had  ceased  to  use  for  his  own  sake.  About 
the  same  time  the  college  authorities,  on  appealing  to  the 
King,  were  angrily  reminded  by  him  that  several  of  their 
members  had  been  against  the  divorce ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  told  them  that  their  foundation  would  be  dis- 
solved and  the  buildings  pulled  down.  However  they 
managed  to  avert  the  storm  (fees  to  courtiers  being,  as 
they  said  in  confidence,  a  '  chief  means  '  of  effecting  what 
they  wished),  and  the  King  at  last  consented  that  Christ- 
church  should  retain  a  portion  of  its  endowments  ;  it 
was,  he  said,  perhaps  with  more  wisdom  than  is  generally 
recognised,  not  for  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom  that  it 
should  be  completed  on  the  splendid  scale  planned  by 
the  Cardinal.  But  before  this  matter  was  brought  to  a 
close  its  great  founder  was  dead.  To  understand  the 
last  events  of  his  life  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  a  few 
weeks.  Shortly  after  leaving  Esher  he  had  made  a  rash 
attempt,  through  Du  Bellay  the  French  ambassador,  to 
secure  the  intercession  of  Francis  I.  His  message  to 
Du  Bellay  was  sent  by  Agostino,  an  Italian  physician  in 
whom  he  had  great  confidence.  But  this  man,  having 
received  from  Norfolk  a  bribe  of  100/.  to  betray  his 
master,  revealed  Wolsey's  secret  mission,  which  was 
interpreted  into  a  wish  to  bring  about  political  changes 
for  his  own  interest ;  nor  were  suspicions  wanting  that 
he  was  urging  the  Pope  to  excommunicate  Henry 
unless  he  parted  with  Anne.  Yet  it  may  be  questioned 
whether,  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time,  what  he  had 
actually  done  would  not  have  been  held  to  justify  the 
harshest  measures;  for  the  crime  of  asking  for  the 
intercession  of  a  foreign  prince  was  the  same  for  which 
in  1456  Giacopo  Foscari  was  racked  at  Venice  thirty 
times  in  the  presence  of  his  aged  father  the  Doge. 
Intercession   meant    interference,  and,  as  we    shall    see 


1 66  The  Early  Tudor s.  I530 

in  another  chapter,  was   considered  a  form  of  aggres- 
sion. 

Cavendish  gives  a  complete  account  of  Wolsey's  arrest, 
which  he  himself  witnessed.    It  was  effected  by  the  young 

Earl  of  Northumberland,  who  had  been 
and  death!         brought  up  in  his  household,  but  had  become 

his  enemy  on  receiving  a  reprimand  for  mis- 
conduct in  the  North.  Wolsey  was  not  allowed  to  see 
the  warrant ;  it  contained,  Northumberland  said,  '  secret 
matters  which  were  not  to  be  made  known  to  him.'  On 
the  next  day  the  prisoner  was  sent  southward  under  the 
care  of  Sir  Roger  Lascelles,  the  Earl  remaining  behind 
at  Cawood  to  search  for  papers,  and,  once  more,  to  take 
an  inventory  of  his  effects.  At  the  end  of  the  third  day's 
journey  the  party  reached  Sheffield  Park,  where  Lord 
Shrewsbury  received  the  Cardinal  with  great  respect,  and 
tried  to  persuade  him  that  the  King  would  certainly  com- 
ply with  his  request  and  give  him  a  personal  hearing.  But 
on  learning  that  Sir  W.  Kingston,  the  Lieutenant  of  the 
Tower,  had  come  to  take  charge  of  him,  Wolsey  thought 
the  very  name  so  ominous  as  to  outweigh  all  the  Earl's 
encouragements.  '  I  perceive,  he  said,  '  more  than  you 
can  imagine  or  know  ;  experience  of  old  hath  taught  me.' 
Nor  was  he  more  cheered  when  Kingston  told  him  of  the 
King's  belief  that  he  would  clear  himself  of  all  charges ; 
'  such  comfortable  words  were  intended  only  to  bring 
him  into  a  fool's  paradise.'  Meantime  a  dysentery  had 
been  coming  on,  and  his  strength  was  faihng.  Yet  he 
held  on  for  three  days  longer,  and  by  way  of  Hardwick, 
Hall  and  Nottingham  arrived  at  Leicester  Abbey.  On 
the  next  morning  Kingston  found  him  too  weak  to  be 
questioned,  according  to  orders,  about  a  sum  of  1,500/. 
which  should  have  been  at  Cawood,  but  had  not  been 
found  ;  Henry  being  concerned  that  the  money  should 


1529  The  Early  Reformation.  167 

be  '  embezzled  away  from  both  of  us.'  In  the  course  of 
the  same  day  occurred  the  celebrated  conversation  with 
Sir  W.  Kingston,  containing  a  character  of  Henry  VIII. 
of  which  every  true  history  of  the  reign  must  be  an  ex- 
pansion. '  He  is  a  prince  of  royal  courage,  and  hath  a 
princely  heart ;  and  rather  than  he  will  miss  or  want 
part  of  his  appetite,  he  will  hazard  the  loss  of  one-half 
of  his  kingdom.  I  assure  you  I  have  often  kneeled  before 
him  in  his  privy-chamber  the  space  of  an  hour  or  two,  to 
persuade  him  from  his  will  and  appetite,  but  I  could 
never  dissuade  him.'  Sad  to  relate,  Wolsey's  last  message 
to  his  master  contamed  an  earnest  entreaty  '  that  he 
would  have  a  vigilant  eye  upon  this  new  pernicious  sect 
of  Lutherans,'  which,  if  allowed  to  grow  up  unheeded, 
might  enact  over  again  in  England  the  horrors  of  the 
Hussite  war  in  Bohemia.  His  whole  administration,  like 
that  of  Richelieu  in  after-time,  had  been  marked  by  a 
scornful  neglect  of  merely  theological  questions.  At  this 
supreme  moment  worldliness  resigned  its  sway ;  yet  in 
favour,  alas  !  not  of  true  religion,  but  of  the  persecuting 
spirit.  Had  he  lived  longer  to  carry  out  such  views  of 
the  religious  life,  all  England  might  have  had  cause  to 
regret  the  day  when  he  began  '  to  serve  God  as  faithfully 
as  he  had  served  his  King.'  He  died  on  the  29th  Novem- 
ber just  as  the  clock  struck  eight — the  very  hour  which 
he  had  foretold  would  be  his  last. 

Within  a  week  of  Wolsey's  condemnation  by  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench  met  the  celebrated  Reformation  Parlia- 
ment of  1529.     Unhke  its  forerunners  in  the 
reign,  it  was  to  be  carried  on  in  successive      Ref  .rminK 
sessions  till   1536,  because,  being   made  up       ^Pr^^t^Ti're 
almost  entirely  of  the  King's  servants,  it  was      acainst  the 
ready  implicitly  to  follow  his  lead  against  the 
clerical  body,  which  had  as  a  whole  been  opposed  to  the 


i68  .         The  Early  Tudors.  1529 

divorce.  The  House  of  Commons  began,  evidently  ac- 
cording to  arrangement,  with  a  petition  complaining  that 
Convocation  often  made,  without  reference  to  the  Crown 
or  to  any  civil  authority,  laws  and  ordinances  against  the 
King's  prerogative,  as  well  as  vexatious  and  oppressive 
to  the  people.  Among  the  resulting  grievances  they  men- 
tioned the  long  journeys  which  had  to  be  made  by 
persons  cited  to  the  Archbishops'  Courts,  the  money  often 
charged  for  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  the 
vexations  of  summoners  and  informers,  the  questions 
asked  in  the  Church  Courts  to  entrap  people  into  heresy, 
and  the  abuse  of  conferring  benefices  on  children.  This 
paper  Henry  sent  to  Archbishop  Warham,  calling  on  him 
for  a  reply,  and  at  the  same  time  directing  Parliament  to 
prepare  Bills  remedying  the  grievances  of  which  they 
complained.  After  laying  the  paper  before  the  Bishops, 
Warham  made  a  singular  reply  in  their  name.  They 
made  laws,  he  said,  only  according  to  the  warrant  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  the  Catholic  Church,  consequently 
it  would  be  only  right  that  the  King  should  '  temper  his 
own  laws  into  conformity  '  with  these.  Although,  he  con- 
tinues, '  we  may  not  submit  the  execution  of  our  duty 
prescribed  to  us  by  God  to  your  Highness's  assent,  yet 
we  most  humbly  desire  your  Grace  to  show  your  mind 
and  opinion  to  us,  which  we  shall  most  gladly  hear  and 
follow,  if  it  shall  please  God  to  inspire  us  to  do  so.'  This 
meant  in  brief  that  the  clergy  legislated  in  religious 
matters,  though  the  civil  power  might  advise  them;  a 
view  which  did  not  show  any  profound  knowledge  of 
English  constitutional  precedents.  The  Archbishop  laid 
down  in  the  later  paragraphs  of  his  answer  that  open 
penance  for  sin  may  rightly  be  commuted  for  money 
where  it  is  desirable  to  maintain  the  party's  good  fame  ; 
that  severity  must  be  used  to  repress  the  beginnings  of 


1529  The  Early  Reformation.  169 

Lutheranism  in  England ;  that  witnesses  even  of  bad 
character  should  be  received  in  such  prosecutions  if  their 
tale  is  likely ;  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Archbishops 
had  been  exercised  for  centuries  and  ought  to  be  so  still, 
in  spite  of  the  inconveniences  to  those  cited  out  of  the 
dioceses  in  which  they  lived;  and  that  when  a  quite 
young  person  is  appointed  to  a  benefice,  its  income  may 
properly  be  spent  for  his  education.  Such  an  answer 
proved  that  the  clerical  mind  was  running  in  a  groove  of 
its  own,  and  unlikely  to  understand  the  statesman's  view 
of  things ;  especially  when  it  was  considered  what  kind 
of  a  comment  upon  the  Archbishop's  principles  was 
furnished  by  familiar  aspects  of  Church  rule — here  an 
ignoble  squabble  about  the  coverlet  of  a  man  just  dead, 
there  an  arbitrary  increase  of  tithes,  elsewhere  a  fine  of  a 
few  shillings  inflicted  on  a  clergyman  as  sufficient  pun- 
ishment for  a  grave  delinquency ;  so  that,  as  Warham 
himself  complains,  priests  were  hooted  in  the  streets 
or  knocked  into  the  kennel.  Obviously,  therefore,  no 
question  more  required  settlement  than  whether  Church 
or  State  law  was  to  be  supreme ;  and  this  was  soon 
decided  by  a  stratagem  which  in  a  moment  turned  the 
defences  of  the  ecclesiastics — suggested,  as  it  is  said,  by 
Cromwell,  a  servant  of  Wolsey's,  who  after  his  fall  had 
become  the  King's  secretary,  having  earned  golden 
opinions  by  his  bold  defence  of  his  master  in  Parliament. 
Henry  suddenly  announced  that  the  whole  body  of  the 
clergy  had  subjected  themselves  to  prcEmtmire,  with  its 
two  consequences  of  imprisonment  and  forfeiture  of  goods, 
by  acknowledging  Wolsey's  legatine  jurisdiction.  They 
might  reply  that  they  had  done  so  only  as  all  England 
had,  and  as  the  King  had  ordered  them ;  indeed  it 
seems  strange  that  a  body  of  men  not  wanting  in  spirit 
failed  to  see  that  consequences  could  not  easily  be  en- 


170  The  Early  Tit  dors.  1531 

forced  against  them  if  they  showed  an  even  front  and 
stated  their  case  well.  As  it  was,  the  audacity  of  the 
charge  seemed  to  strike  Convocation  with  a  kind  of  panic, 
and  they  consented  to  pay  119,000/.  as  a  fine  for  their 
misdemeanour.  But  over  and  above  this  they  were,  under 
the  same  penalty,  to  acknowledge  the  King's  supremacy  in 
Church  affairs,  which  would  plainly  involve  the  abandon- 
ment of  their  claim  to  make  canons  without  his  permission. 
Convocation  voted  the  subsidy  on  the  24th  of  January,  1531, 
and  a  fortnight  later  the  King  was  most  reluctantly  recog- 
nised as  '  the  singular  protector  and  only  supreme  gov- 
ernor of  the  English  Church,  and,  as  far  as  the  law  of  Christ 
permits,  its  supreme  head.'  On  the  13th  of  May,  1532,  they 
agreed,  for  themselves  and  their  successors,  to  frame  no 
new  canons  without  the  royal  license  ;  and  farther  con- 
sented that  whatever  in  the  existing  body  of  Church  law 
'  appeared  not  to  stand  with  God's  law '  should  be  abro- 
gated by  the  united  action  of  King  and  clergy.  For  the 
present  nothing  was  expressly  said  about  the  power  of 
the  Pope,  inasmuch  as  Clement  might  possibly  still  decide 
on  the  marriage  as  the  King  wished. 

The  act  of  Convocation  was  not  quite  unresisted  by 
the  general  body  of  the  clergy.  As  to  the  fine,  they 
_    .  vainly  argued  that  it  ought  to  be  paid  only  by 

Resistance  ,  ,      ,       ,    ,  ,  •  „  ,  /  j 

of  the  clergy  those  who  had  done  thmgs  really  acknowledg- 
overrue  .  j^^  ^^^  legatine  jurisdiction — that  is,  only  by 

the  bishops  and  superior  clergy  ;  and  on  the  other  point 
a  protest  was  numerously  signed  against  any  interference 
with  Church  liberties  or  the  Pope's  authority.  At  Rome 
itself  the  enforced  submission  of  the  Church  was  treated 
as  a  revolt  on  Henry's  part ;  therefore  all  delays  were 
put  aside,  and  he  was  informed  (May  31,  1531)  that  the 
revoked  cause  would  at  once  be  reopened  there,  and 
that  the   Court  would    proceed   to   a   decision   whether 


1 531  More  and  Fisher.  171 

he  appeared  or  no.  Before  the  session  of  1 529-30  ended, 
Parliament  passed  Bills  for  the  reduction  of  the  pro- 
bate duty  and  the  partial  abolition  of  mortuaries — that 
is,  of  the  offensive  perquisites  claimed  by  the  clergy  on 
the  death  of  a  parishioner.  Another  Bill  was  to  restrain 
clerical  trading  and  farming,  with  pluralities  and  non- 
residence  ;  but  this  was  shown  to  press  so  hard  upon 
many  of  the  poorer  incumbents  that  it  was  passed  only 
in  a  mitigated  form.  Such  was  the  first  session  of  the 
celebrated  Parliament  of  1529,  which  was  to  be  continued, 
session  after  session,  till  1536,  ready  to  pass,  suspend,  or 
recall  measures  according  to  the  royal  word  of  command, 
yet  on  the  whole  deserving  our  gratitude  for  much  of  the 
work  which  it  accomplished.  For  the  evil  attending  its 
measures  at  the  time  has  long  been  purged  away  from 
Church  and  State ;  while  the  good  has  '  grown  with  our 
growth  and  strengthened  with  our  strength.' 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

MORE    AND    FISHER. 
1531-1535- 

As  the  year  1531  proceeded,  things  began  to  appear  as  if 
Henry  might  possibly  shake  off  his  ignoble  bondage.   The 
insolence  of  the  favourite  alienated  many  of 
her  friends,  while  others  when  promoted  be-     the'^Universi- 
came  far  less  inclined  than  before  to  hazard     'I?''  °"  '•"^ 

divorce. 

anything  for  her.     Both  her  father  and  her 
uncle  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  began  to  fear  the  results  of 
popular  anger  if  they  sanctioned  the   marriage.     Even 
some  of  Henry's  agents  at  Rome,  while  seeming  to  press 
the  Pope  hard,  were  privately  conjuring  him  to  remain 


1 72  The  Early  Tiidors.  1531 

firm  ;  the  cause,  they  said,  ought  to  be  heard  at  Rome  and 
decided  in  favour  of  Katherine,  and  Henry  would  cer- 
tainly give  way  if  the  Pope  persisted.     The  King  still  saw 
his  wife  sometimes,  and,  curiously  enough,  used  to  refer 
to  her  when  his  wardrobe  required  attention.     It  seemed 
more  than  doubtful  whether  he  would  long  endure  being 
rated  by  his  mistress  for  timidity  in  not  putting  obstacles 
aside,  and  above  all  for  not  holding  his  own  in  disputes 
with  Katherine  on  her  marriage.     Warham  was  dying 
and  repentant  for  former  concessions  ;  there  was  there- 
fore no  hope  of  assistance  from  him.     Anne  herself  ap- 
peared to  be  providing  for  adversity  ;  she  was  created 
Marchioness  of  Pembroke,  and  property  was  setded  upon 
her  and  the  heirs  of  her  body  '  whether  legitimate  or  not,'  so 
that  it  appeared  as  if  she  might  soon  be  a  mere  discarded 
mistress.     She  was  to  go  with  Henry  to  meet  Francis  I. 
near  Calais  ;  but  there  was  a  world  of  difficulty  in  procur- 
ing either  English  ladies  to  attend  or  French  ladies  of 
any  character  to  meet  her.     Indeed  any  French  alliance 
was  in  itself  as  unpopular  as  ever.     Anne  would  hardly 
have  weathered  the  storm  but  for  the  help  she  got  from 
Cromwell,  who  had  been  in  the  King's  confidence  since 
1530,  and   from   Cranmer,  who   succeeded  Warham   as 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1533.     Cranmer  had  been 
first  a  tutor  in  Lord  Wiltshire's  family,  then  chaplain  to 
Lord   Rochford   and   to   the    King ;   he   had   also  gone 
abroad   on   the    King's    service,    and   had   married   the 
niece  of  the  German  reformer  Osiander,  an  act  which 
made  him   liable  to    prosecution  at   any  moment.     His 
great  claim  to  Henry's  favour  had  been  his  scheme  of 
1530  for  coercing  the  Pope  in  the  divorce  question  by 
the  opinions  of  English  and  foreign  Universities.     This 
obtained  something  like  what  it  desired  from  the  Heads 
of  Houses,   Doctors,  and  Proctors  of  Oxford,  all  other 


1532  More  and  Fisher.  173 

resident  members  having  been  prudently  shut  out  from 
the  deliberation  ;  the  other  University  yielded  somewhat 
more  easily  to  Cranmer  as  a  Cambridge  man.  Among 
the  German  Protestants  Cranmer  had  little  success,  in 
spite  of  his  connection  with  them ;  at  Paris  faintly 
approving  opinion  was  obtained  by  Francis's  manage- 
ment, and  that  this  might  not  be  cancelled  afterwards, 
the  registers  of  the  University  were  spirited  away. 
The  academic  bodies  under  the  Emperor's  control  would 
of  course  have  no  liberty  of  action  ;  so  that  the  net  result 
of  the  appeal  was  meagre  in  the  extreme,  and  what  there 
was  had  been  obtained  either  by  threats  or  bribery. 

The  questions  which  arose  on  Cranmer's  promotion 
were,  first,  whether  the  Pope  would  sanction  it,  and  then 
v/hether  he  would  issue  the  bulls  for  it  with- 
out the  usual   payment   of  annates   to  the      Ccmrra^^ 
amount  of  10,000  ducats.     Henry  met  this      Dunstable. 

.  Popular 

difficulty  in  a  characteristic  way.  Parliament  feeling  to- 
had  enacted  in  1 532  that  annates  should  not 
be  paid  in  future  to  Rome ;  but  they  had  appended  to  their 
Bill  a  provision  that  it  should  not  come  into  force  before 
Easter  1533  unless  the  King  ordered  that  it  should  do 
so  by  letters  patent.  Henry  therefore  allowed  it  to  be 
understood  that  if  Cranmer's  business  was  expedited 
this  unwelcome  law  might  never  be  enforced  ;  and  the 
Pope,  in  his  ignorance  of  the  new  Archbishop's  real 
character,  fell  helplessly  into  the  snare.  Even  the 
Emperor  did  not  see  what  was  coming,  in  spite  of  the 
warning  of  the  acute  Chapuys,  his  ambassador  in  England, 
but  thought  it  impossible  that  Henry  should  persist  so 
long  in  a  whim ;  he  must  surely  have  made  Anne  a 
marchioness  in  order  to  get  rid  of  her.  The  result  was 
that  the  bulls  were  passed,  and  only  half  the  usual  fee 
exacted.     Before  they  arrived,  however,  the  state  of  the 


174  The  Early  Tudor s.  1533 

Marchioness  of  Pembroke  made  a  prompt  resolution 
necessary  if  appearances  were  to  be  saved.  A  public 
wedding  was  out  of  the  question  ;  it  would  at  once  have 
stopped  Cranmer's  bulls  and  led  to  an  excommunication. 
The  only  remedy  was  that  it  should  be  solemnised  pri- 
vately ;  and  with  such  success  was  this  done,  that  even 
now  it  is  not  known  certainly  by  what  priest  it  was  per- 
formed or  when — the  date,  however,  was  about  January 
25>  ^533-  The  secret  remained  an  open  one  for  a  few 
weeks,  during  which  with  some  difficulty  an  Act  of  Par- 
liament was  passed  forbidding  appeals  to  Rome  in  matri- 
monial causes,  and  the  Convocation  of  the  clergy  was  in- 
duced by  various  manoeuvres  to  declare  the  King's  first 
marriage  invalid.  On  the  loth  of  May  the  new  Arch- 
bishop opened  a  Court  at  Dunstable,  summoned  Kath- 
erine  to  appear,  declared  her  contumacious  for  not  doing 
so,  and  then  gave  sentence  that  her  marriage  had  been 
invalid  all  along.  A  few  days  afterwards  another  session 
was  held,  and  the  King's  last  marriage  declared  to  be 
regular.  But  when  Anne  went  in  state  to  the  Tower  the 
people  would  by  no  means  take  off  their  caps  or  shout 
'  God  save  the  Queen  ;  '  and  when  she  was  first  prayed 
for  in  a  church  the  congregation  went  out  in  a  body. 
Meanwhile  Katherine  on  her  enforced  journey  from 
Ampthill  to  Buckden  was  cheered  by  crowds  of  people, 
who  cried  '  God  bless  her '  and  declared  that  she  was  the 
one  true  queen.  The  Princess  Mary  was  equally  popular, 
and  owed  her  quiet  succession  long  after  to  the  still 
living  memories  of  this  time.  Anne  tried  in  vain  to  make 
Henry  punish  such  disloyalty  ;  her  influence  was  already 
abating,  and  within  three  months  he  was  telling  her  that 
she  must  shut  her  eyes  to  his  amourettes,  '  as  her  betters 
had  done  before  her.'  On  the  nth  of  September  the 
long-expected  child  was  born ;  but  it  was  a  daughter 


1533  More  and  Fisher.  175 

after  all,  in  spite  of  the  predictions  of  a  host  of  astrologers 
and  wizards  who  had  been  consulted.  In  the  midst  of  the 
King's  disappointment  he  was  mean  enough  to  order  that 
his  daughter  Mary  should  come  to  Hatfield  and  enter  the 
service  of  the  infant  Elizabeth  ;  while  Anne  with  charac- 
teristic coarseness  declared  that  she  would  make  Mary  act 
as  her  lady's  maid,  and  even  after  a  while  give  petu- 
lant orders  that  she  should  be  beaten  if  she  claimed  the 
title  of  Princess. 

The  course  taken  by  the  Pope  and  Emperor  was  now 
dangerously  serious  and  dignified.  When  asked  whether 
he  would  undertake  the  deposition  of  Henry 
if  the  Pope  pronounced  it,  Charles  replied  S'c"ommuni- 
that  he  could  not  give  such  a  pledge  upon  a  cation  of 
mere  contingency,  but  that  his  Holiness 
would  always  find  him  an  obedient  son  of  the  Church. 
The  Pope  therefore  annulled  Cramner's  acts  at  Dunstable 
(July  II,  1533)  and  declared  that  Henry  would  be  excom- 
municated at  the  end  of  September  if  he  had  not  sepa- 
rated from  Anne  before  that  time.  This  was  likely  to  be 
no  briitmn  fulmen ,  for  English  discontent  was  quite  pre- 
pared to  welcome  the  Emperor,  who,  as  the  supreme 
authority  of  Europe,  might  place  on  the  throne  either 
James  of  Scotland  or  one  of  the  Pole  family,  the  descend- 
ants of  George  Duke  of  Clarence,  Edward  IV.'s  brother. 
Henry  had  tried  to  meet  the  excommunication  beforehand 
by  an  appeal  to  a  General  Council ;  not  only,  however, 
was  this  clearly  against  the  Papal  constitutions,  but  it 
annoyed  Francis  I.,  who  was  unwilling  to  offend  the  Pope 
by  repeating  the  very  demand  for  a  Council  which  the  Em- 
peror was  constantly  making.  To  reinforce  his  position, 
he  asked  the  Privy  Council  in  the  following  December  to 
advise  him,  first,  whether  the  Pope  is  superior  or  inferior 
to  a  General  Council,  and,  secondly,  whether  he  has  by 


176  The  Early  Tudors.  I533~ 

God's  law  more  authority  than  other  bishops.  Cranmer 
was  the  only  prelate  who  gave  the  negative  answer  fully 
and  at  once ;  but  the  replies  were  on  the  whole  considered 
sufficient,  and  orders  were  issued  that  all  preachers  at 
St.  Paul's  Cross,  as  well  as  the  heads  of  the  four  Orders 
of  Friars,  should  declare  their  assent  to  this  doctrine. 
The  King  was  farther  encouraged  by  an  opportunity  which 
seemed  to  offer  itself  of  heading  a  North  European  League 
independent  of  French  and  Imperial  politics.  A  Liibeck 
captain  named  Marcus  Meyer,  who  was  charged  with 
piracy  for  attacking  Dutch  vessels  in  English  harbours, 
had  the  address  to  persuade  him  that,  as  the  King  of 
Denmark  was  just  dead,  he  might  get  himself  chosen 
as  his  successor,  and  then  form  with  Liibeck  (as  the 
head  of  the  still  powerful  Hanseatic  League)  a  combina- 
tion strong  enough  to  face  all  enemies.  Though  this 
fanciful  project  came  to  nothing,  it  still  inspirited  Henry 
at  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  cheerless  periods  of  all  his 
life.  Thus  encouraged,  he  declared  that  unless  the  Pope 
consented  in  nine  weeks  to  cancel  the  sentence  of  July 
by  declaring  his  first  marriage  null  and  void  and  his 
second  valid,  he  would  separate  England  from  the  Roman 
obedience  altogether.  Yet  it  was  most  doubtful  whether 
he  would  be  able  to  carry  the  people  with  him  ;  indeed 
within  a  few  weeks  a  bold  preacher  said  to  his  face  that 
the  Pope's  authority  is  the  highest  on  earth ;  and  what 
Hugh  Latimer  thus  dared  to  tell  him  openly  tens  of 
thousands  must  have  been  feeling  in  their  hearts. 

Henry  was  now  threatened  at  home  by 
The  Nun  of  ^^^  terrors  of  superstition.  A  peasant-girl 
Peter's  named  Elizabeth  Barton  had  for  some  years 

Pence.  _        ^  -^ 

'X\\^  conge        been  known  as  a  kind  of    '  estatica.'     She 

constantly  fell  into  convulsions,  during  which 

she  uttered  words   surprising  from   their  persuasive  or 


-1534  More  and  Fisher.  177 

terrifying  power,  and  also  appeared  to  know  events  of 
which  she  could  not  have  been  informed  in  any  natural 
way.  She  must  evidently  be  inspired,  people  thought, 
either  by  the  spririt  of  God  or  by  Satan  ;  and  as  all  her 
utterances  were  in  favour  of  holiness,  the  latter  could 
hardly  be  her  case.  The  rector  of  Aldington,  in  which  parish 
she  lived,  thought  it  well  to  make  her  known  to  Warham 
as  his  diocesan.  The  Archbishop  felt  much  as  St. 
Bernard  did  when  the  sayings  of  Hildegard  were  re- 
ported to  him.  He  declared  that  the  words  which  she  had 
spoken  came  from  God,  and  commended  her  to  the  care 
of  Father  Booking  of  Christchurch,  Canterbury,  and 
some  other  monks.  Under  their  auspices  she  was  '  mirac- 
ulously '  cured  of  her  random  and  irregular  trances ; 
thenceforward  they  returned  upon  her  at  intervals  of  a 
fortnight,  and  on  these  occasions  she  was  consulted  as  an 
inspired  person  about  Church  matters  of  all  kinds.  Her 
answers  strongly  denounced  the  system  of  interference 
with  Church  privileges,  and,  when  the  divorce  question 
arose,  she  issued  '  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of 
God '  a  solemn  prohibition  to  the  King,  declaring  that  if 
he  parted  from  his  wife  '  he  should  not  reign  a  month, 
but  should  die  a  villain's  death  ; '  and  the  Pope  was 
similarly  threatened  if  he  complied.  No  punishment, 
however,  was  for  the  time  inflicted  on  her  ;  and  she 
presently  entered  the  priory  of  St.  Sepulchre,  Canterbury, 
and  was  known  as  Sister  Elizabeth,  the  Nun  of  Kent. 
When  Henry  was  returning  from  Calais  with  Anne,  she  met 
him  on  the  way  with  her  raven  prophecies  of  evil  to 
come.  But  the  days  were  at  hand  when  statesmen  would 
hold  her  inspiration  as  cheaply  as  Voltaire  himself  might 
have  done.  A  spy  of  Cromwell's  was  the  first  to  put 
him  on  the  track  of  an  important  conspiracy  in  which 
she  was  to  be  an  instrument.     Cranmer  was  ordered  to 

M 


178  The  Early  Tudors.  1534 

examine  her,  and  by  feigning  to  believe,  as  Warham  had 
beheved,  in  her  visions,  he  obtained  a  good  deal  of  in- 
formation. The  papers  of  her  accomplices  were  seized, 
and  it  actually  appeared  that  among  those  who  were  in 
correspondence  with  her  was  Sir  Thomas  More,  who 
had  resigned  the  Great  Seal  (May  16,  1532)  from  disgust 
at  the  anti-Papal  measures  then  passing  through  Parlia- 
ment, with  Bishop  Fisher,  the  Marchioness  of  Exeter  (who 
was  a  strong  friend  of  Mary's),  the  Countess  of  Salisbury 
(Reginald  Pole's  mother),  and  many  other  eminent  per- 
sons ;  nothing  was,  however,  found  implicating  either 
Katherine  or  Mary.  The  juncture  was  indeed  a  serious 
one.  A  war  with  Charles  was  impending,  which,  if  it 
took  place,  would  ruin  Enghsh  trade.  Some  fresh  meas- 
ures lately  taken  for  the  punishment  of  Lutheranism  and 
the  prohibition  of  foreign  books  were  beyond  measure 
unpopular;  and  the  feeling  for  the  injured  Mary  was 
more  passionate  than  ever.  It  was  not  hard  to  foretell 
the  consequences  if  at  some  critical  moment  a  band  of 
fanatical  friars,  backed  by  the  Nun's  inspiration,  went 
abroad  among  the  people  to  preach  that  Henry  was 
God-forsaken  ;  especially  as  every  one  knew  that  the 
fearful  Peasant  War  in  Germany  had  been  stirred  up  by 
an  enthusiast  of  the  Nun's  type.  Accordingly  the  Nun 
was  made  to  read  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  an  acknowledgment 
of  her  imposture,  and  then  committed  v/ith  her  accom- 
plices to  the  Tower  to  wait  for  the  meeting  of  Parliament 
in  January  1534.  A  Bill  of  Attainder  was  then  brought 
in  against  her  and  the  monks  who  had  helped  her,  and 
they  were  executed  (April  21).  The  Bill  at  first  included 
the  names  of  Sir  Thomas  More  as  well  as  of  Bishop 
Fisher;  the  House  of  Lords,  however,  were  of  opinion 
that  there  was  not  sufficient  evidence  against  More. 
Fisher  was   held  to  be   guilty  of  misprision  of  treason 


1534  More  and  Fisher.  1 79 

(that  is,  of  having  countenanced  and  favoured  it),  and 
was  committed  to  the  Tower,  his  only  defence  being  that, 
though  he  had  really  thought  the  Nun  inspired,  he  had 
never  had  the  least  notion  of  fulfilling  her  warnings  by 
conspiracy.  With  regard  to  the  other  persons  suspected 
in  various  degrees,  the  risk  which  they  had  run  and  the 
knowledge  that  they  were  liable  to  be  questioned  again 
at  any  time  might  perhaps  keep  them  from  farther  plans 
against  Henr)' ;  therefore  no  steps  were  taken  against 
them.  At  the  same  time  Parliament  abolished  Peter's 
Pence  and  all  the  varieties  of  payment  to  the  Pope  from 
England  ;  yet  intimated  that  the  Act  was  not  irrevocable 
if  his  HoHness  should  consent  to  the  divorce.  The  mode 
of  appointment  to  bishoprics  was  also  nakedly  and  statu- 
tably  reduced  to  what  had  been  essentially  the  established 
practice.  In  the  case  of  a  vacancy,  that  is,  the  Cathedral 
Chapter  was  to  be  admonished  by  a  conge  cTelire  from 
the  Crown  to  choose,  as  they  regarded  the  welfare  of 
their  souls,  a  fit  and  proper  person  for  the  see ;  but  at 
the  same  time  a  second  document  was  to  be  placed  in 
their  hands  naming  the  person  whom  they  were  to  elect, 
with  prcBmunire  in  case  of  refusal.  On  this  footing  such 
elections  have  remained  ever  since,  except  in  part  of 
Edward  VI. 's  reign,  during  which  bishops  exercised 
their  office  on  a  simple  patent  from  the  Crown,  as  indeed 
those  of  the  Irish  Church  did  up  to  its  disestablishment 
in  1869.  In  the  same  session  Parliament  settled  the 
succession  of  the  throne  on  Elizabeth,  as  born  from  the 
King's  only  lawful  marriage,  and  enabled  him  to  appoint 
a  Commission  consisting  of  Cranmer,  Audley,  who  had 
succeeded  Sir  Thomas  More  as  Chancellor,  and  the 
Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  which  should  impose  on 
all  English  subjects  an  oath  to  defend  the  Act  of  Succes- 
sion '  and   all   the  whole   contents  and   effects  thereof.' 


i8o  The  Early  Tudors.  1534 

They  then  drew  up  a  Bill  of  forbidden  degrees  in  marriage, 
in  conformity  with  the  book  of  Leviticus,  and,  as  Black- 
stone  says,  on  the  general  principle  that  marriage  is  not 
barred  by  a  relationship  more  remote  than  that  between 
uncle  and  niece.  Finally  the  Parliament  declared  that 
on  separating  from  the  Pope  they  '  had  not  intended  to 
decline  or  vary  from  the  articles  of  the  Catholic  faith  of 
Christendom,  or  from  anything  declared  in  the  word  of 
God  to  be  necessary  for  salvation.' 

By  the  middle  of  1534  the  discontent  against  Henry  was 
getting  still  more  dangerous.  We  can  trace  almost  day  by 

day  the  steps  of  conspiracy.  On  the  9th  of  July 
conspiracies.  Lord  Dacrc  of  the  North  was  indicted  before 
Rising  in  ^^i^g  Peers  for  treasonable  correspondence  with 

the  Scots ;  but  they  voted  his  acquittal  with  a 
boldness  which  astonished  every  one  and  gave  great 
confidence  to  the  malcontents,  as  in  case  of  failure  they 
might  be  able  to  safeguard  one  another  in  the  same  way. 
All  through  September  several  noblemen  were  trying 
to  arrange  an  invasion  from  Flanders  with  Chapuys, 
Charles's  ambassador.  Lord  Darcy  promised  to  raise 
8,cxx)  men  in  aid  of  it ;  Lords  Dacre  and  Derby,  and 
even  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  the  last  loyal  peer 
north  of  the  Trent,  were  prepared  to  join.  Men  like  the 
acute  Lord  Sandys  and  Dr.  Butts,  the  King's  physician, 
thought  that  Charles  would  have  no  difficulty  whatever 
in  conquering  the  country,  which  had  now  scarcely  any 
navy  left.  Even  the  courtiers  hardly  made  a  secret  of  their 
contempt  for  Anne,  paying  visits  to  the  Princess  Mary 
under  her  very  eyes.  If  Mary  was  sent  to  the  Tower, 
Sir  W.  Kingston  was  ready  to  take  up  her  cause ; 
while  if  Henry  was  once  dethroned,  he  was  pretty  sure 
to  find  that  for  him  there  was  no  prison  but  the  grave. 
At  almost    the    same    time    Lord   Thomas    Fitzgerald, 


1534  More  and  Fisher.  l8l 

who  had  been  made  Irish  Deputy  when  his  father  Lord 
Kildare  was  summoned  to  England,  threw  up  his  office 
on  hearing  of  Kildare's  imprisonment  (June  ii)  and 
immediately  plunged  into  rebeUion,  calling  on  Charles 
for  help.  '  He  was,'  he  declared,  '  of  the  Pope's  sect  and 
band  ;  him  he  would  serve  against  the  King  and  all  his 
partakers;  Henry  and  all  who  took  his  part  were  accursed.' 
Sir  John  White,  the  governor  of  Dublin,  was  unable  to 
defend  the  city,  as  the  Fitzgeralds,  while  in  power,  had 
stripped  it  of  military  stores.  Allen,  the  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  tried  to  make  his  way  to  England  for  help,  but 
was  intercepted  and  murdered  near  Clontarf.  Dublin 
Castle  was  besieged  till  October,  but  saved  at  last  by  the 
Earl  of  Ormond,  who  made  a  diversion  by  attacking  the 
besiegers'  homes  in  Kildare.  After  much  delay,  some 
forces  were  sent  over  from  England ;  Lord  Kildare's 
castle  of  Maynooth,  which  was  supposed  to  be  impreg- 
nable, was  battered  down  by  Henry's  artillery,  and  by 
what  is  called  in  Irish  tradition  the  '  Pardon  of  May- 
nooth '  the  greater  part  of  its  defenders  were  hanged  on 
the  ruins.  Lord  Thomas  was  thenceforward  a  fugitive ; 
yet  he  was  bold  enough  to  stay  in  Ireland  in  the  hope 
that  Imperial  troops  might  be  on  the  way  to  help  him. 
As  none  arrived,  he  tried  in  August  1535  to  make  his 
peace  with  Lord  Leonard  Grey,  the  new  Deputy,  who  was 
his  relation  by  marriage.  Grey,  on  his  own  showing, 
'  allured  him  with  comfortable  words  '  to  surrender,  and, 
it  seems  too  clear,  promised  that  his  life  should  be 
spared.  But  the  pledge  was  broken  ;  he  remained  in 
prison  for  about  a  year,  and  was  then  executed  with  his 
five  uncles,  leaving  the  male  part  of  the  family  to  be 
represented  by  one  youth  whom  his  friends  had  con- 
cealed. 

Instead  of  really  sounding  the  depths  of  the  conspiracy 


1 82  The  Early  Tudors.  1535 

against  him,  Henry  seems  to  have  thought  in  the  latter 
De  th  f  part  of  1534  that  it  would  be  enough  to  terrify 

Fisher  conscicnces  by  the  new  Act  of  Succession  ; 

if  they  were  firm,  honest,  and  resistant  con- 
sciences, so  much  the  better  for  his  purpose.  His  new 
Commission  of  Oaths  might  be  made  a  crucial  test  of 
loyalty,  if  applied  not  to  nobles  like  Darcy  or  Nortlium- 
berland,  who  would  have  made  any  professions  without 
giving  up  their  plans,  but  to  such  men  as  More,  Fisher, 
and  the  monks  of  the  Charterhouse,  who  were  likely  to 
swear  what  they  meant  and  mean  what  they  swore.  The 
Carthusian  community  had  a  high  reputation  for  holi- 
ness. Haughton,  its  Prior,  was  known  to  have  warned 
his  penitents  against  admitting  the  Royal  Supremacy  in 
Church  affairs  with  whatever  mental  reservation,  and  it 
was  certain  that  he  would  himself  refuse  the  oath.  On  his 
doing  so,  he  was  prosecuted  with  two  other  Priors  of  his 
Order;  and  on  the  15th  of  May,  1535,  they  suffered  the 
penalty  for  treason  in  its  fullest  horror,  giving  God  thanks, 
as  they  passed  to  the  rope  and  quartering-knife,  that  they 
were  held  worthy  to  suffer  for  the  truth.  Many  others  of 
the  brotherhood  were  either  executed  later  on  or  chained 
to  posts  in  Newgate  and  there  (by  express  orders)  so 
starved  and  otherwise  ill-treated  that  nine  out  of  ten  thus 
imprisoned  died  within  a  fortnight. 

Somewhat  earlier  than  this  the  first  steps  had  been  taken 
for  the  trial  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  On  the  13th  of  April 
he  had  been  ordered  to  appear  before  the  Commission  of 
Oaths.  As  he  went  to  his  boat  at  Chelsea,  he  closed  the 
garden-gate  behind  him,  that  his  children  might  not 
follow  him  as  usual  to  the  waterside,  and  whispered  after 
a  few  minutes  to  Roper,  his  son-in-law,  '  I  thank  our 
Lord,  the  field  is  won.'  He  had  overcome  all  fears,  and 
was  ready  to  meet  any  consequences.     Being  called  upon 


1535  More  and  Fisher.  183 

to  swear  to  the  Act  of  Succession,  he  replied  by  a 
distinction.  Parliament,  he  said,  had  complete  power  to 
settle  the  succession  to  the  throne,  and  he  would  willingly 
swear  true  allegiance  to  the  heir  named  by  it ;  but  to  no 
nullifying  of  the  first  marriage,  such  as  the  preamble  of 
the  Act  contained,  would  he  consent  to  commit  himself. 
He  was  therefore  sent  to  the  Tower,  where  Bishop  Fisher 
had  been  ever  since  his  conviction  in  the  Nun's  affair. 
Just  then  it  occurred  to  the  ministers  that  More's  crime, 
after  all,  was  not  capital,  as  the  Act  had  made  it  only 
misprision  of  treason  to  refuse  the  oath.  It  was  therefore 
thought  better  to  challenge  him  on  the  subject  of  the  Royal 
Supremacy  over  the  Church,  as  admitted  in  1 531  and 
established  by  Act  of  Parliament  in  1534.  Accordingly, 
Cromwell  went  to  the  Tower  and  called  upon  him  to 
swear  on  this  point,  which  he  at  once  refused  to  do,  and 
thus  brought  his  life  within  the  reach  of  the  law.  Car- 
dinal Fisher — for  the  new  Pope,  Paul  III.,  had  given  him 
this  title  since  his  imprisonment,  thus  incensing  Henry 
far  more  against  him — made  the  same  noble  answer,  and 
was  within  a  few  days  tried,  sentenced,  and  executed 
(June  22,  1535).  More's  trial  began  on  the  6th  of  May  ; 
he  was  prosecuted  as  having  originally  dissuaded  the 
King  from  marrying  Anne,  as  refusing  to  acknowledge 
him  for  Head  of  the  Church,  and  as  having  written  trea- 
sonable letters  to  Fisher  from  his  prison.  To  the  first 
charge  he  replied  that  a  Privy  Councillor's  honest  advice 
to  the  King  cannot  be  treasonable  ;  to  the  second  that 
he  kept  silence  without  malice,  and  only  because  anything 
he  said  would  have  been  misconstrued  ;  to  the  third  that 
the  letters  to  Fisher  were  burnt,  and  that  no  evidence  was 
offered  of  their  contents,  which  he  declared  had  no  relation 
to  the  matter  of  the  charge.  Sir  R.  Rich,  the  Attorney- 
General,  then  swore  that  the  accused,  while  in  prison. 


184  The  Early  Tudors.  1535 

had  expressly  stated  to  him  that  Parliament  had  no 
power  to  make  any  one  Head  of  the  Church.  '  I  never 
said  so,'  retorted  More,  '  nor  is  it  likely  that  what  I 
concealed  from  his  Majesty  I  should  reveal  to  one  of 
light  tongue  and  not  commendable  fame.'  After  his 
sentence  some  attempts  were  made  to  bring  him  to 
submission  by  a  side  wind  ;  but  they  were  all  in  vain,  and 
he  was  executed  on  the  6th  of  July.  His  quiet  humour  both 
at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold  and  just  before  the  axe  fell  has 
often  excited  admiration  ;  yet  perhaps  less  than  if  it  were 
considered  that  Sir  W.  Kingston  was  his  dear  friend 
w^hom  he  was  anxious  to  cheer  in  that  supreme  moment. 
Never  perhaps  was  this  great  man  better  described  than 
in  a  passage  of  the  '  Spectator,' which,  though  not  ascribed 
to  Addison,  still  is  serene  and  pure  like  him.  '  The 
innocent  mirth  which  had  been  so  conspicuous  in  his 
life  did  not  forsake  him  to  the  last.  His  death  was  of 
a  piece  with  his  life  ;  there  was  nothing  in  it  new,  forced, 
or  affected.  He  did  not  look  upon  the  severing  of  his 
head  from  his  body  as  a  circumstance  which  ought  to 
produce  any  change  in  the  disposition  of  his  mind  ;  and, 
as  he  died  in  a  fixed  and  settled  hope  of  immortality, 
he  thought  any  unusual  degree  of  concern  improper.' 
His  head  was  savagely  set  up  on  London  Bridge,  stolen 
from  thence  by  his  beloved  daughter  Margaret  Roper, 
and  seen  many  years  afterwards  in  her  coffin  close  to 
what  had  been  her  heart. 

We  sometimes  meet  with  men  whose  turn  is  so  far 
sceptical,  that  they  sympathise  for  awhile  with  the  freest 
enquiry,  and  lead  on  others  by  their  apparent 
Si*^  T^'Mor°e^  acquiescence,  while  at  the  same  time  a  deeply- 
seated  and  almost  physical  conservatism  rules 
their  heart  and  conscience,  and  they  are  likely  at  any 
moment  to  fall  back  with  unshaken  conviction  upon  argu- 


1535  More  and  Fisher.  185 

merits  which  they  seemed  long  ago  to  have  outgrown. 
Such  a  man  was  Sir  Thomas  More ;  hence  towards  the 
end  of  his  life  he  was  intellectually  much  more  like  his 
early  patron  Cardinal  Morton  than  the  Erasmus  who  had 
been  his  delight  in  early  manhood.  Now  he  saw  nothing 
unlikely  in  the  idea  that  God  might  work  miracles  by 
means  of  particular  images  or  relics ;  if  more  than  one 
place  claimed  to  possess  the  body  of  a  saint,  he  thought 
it  enough  to  reply  that  part  of  the  body  might  be  in  one 
place,  part  in  another,  or  that  there  might  be  two  saints 
of  the  same  name,  or  that  relics  genuine  in  themselves 
might  have  been  wrongly  styled.  It  was,  he  thought, 
easy  to  believe  that  specially  beautiful  or  specially  old 
images  might  be  the  channels  of  great  blessing.  For- 
getting Laurentius  Valla's  refutation,  he  boldly  appealed 
to  our  Lord's  portrait  sent  by  Him  to  Abgarus  of  Edessa 
as  justifying  the  use  of  images  in  general.  Above  all 
arguments  he  constantly  refers  to  the  indefectibility  of 
the  Church ;  any  taint  of  real  idolatry  would,  he  thought 
have  falsified  our  Lord's  promise,  and  therefore  nothing 
that  the  Church  ever  did  can  have  this  character.  And 
as  a  corollary  to  this  he  always  thought  it  enough  to 
justify  any  superstition  if  he  could  show  that  it  was 
practised  by  the  Fathers  of  the  first  four  centuries. 

He  has  been  accused  as  Chancellor  of  great  and  even 
extra-judicial  cruelty  to  Lutherans ;  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  peculiar  dogmatism  of  Luther  had 
always  been  odious  to  him  as  putting  aside  the  sounder 
views  of  reformation  in  union  with  culture  which  he  had 
learned  from  Erasmus  and  Colet.  But,  on  the  charge  of 
torturing  Protestants  out  of  Court,  there  is  no  need  to 
doubt  his  assertion  that  only  twice  did  he  ever  do  any- 
thing even  distantly  resembhng  this :  once  when  he 
ordered  a  moderate  whipping  to  a  boy  who  used  profane 


1 86  The  Early  Tudors.  1535 

language,  and  once  when  he '  cured '  a  man  whose  madness 
took  the  form  of  heresy  by  stripes  apphed  with  much 
vigour.  As  to  the  latter  case,  we  must  not  of  course 
forget  that  beating  and  starvation  were  almost  up  to  our 
own  memory  the  accepted  treatment  for  insane  persons, 
and  that  here  and  there  the  same  notion  still  survives. 
It  cannot  imfortunately  be  denied  that  he  allowed  his 
jurisdiction  to  be  invoked  by  the  Bishops,  and  misused  it 
by  keeping  men  in  prison  when  they  ought  legally  to 
have  been  released  ;  nor  that  he  was  too  deeply  con- 
cerned in  the  death  of  Bilney,  whose  chief  heresy  was 
charging  the  priesthood  with  immorality,  and  of  Bainham, 
who  held  that  '  if  a  Jew  or  Saracen  trusts  in  God  and 
keeps  his  law,  he  is  a  good  Christian  man,'  and  was 
therefore  racked  in  the  Tower  by  the  Chancellor's 
order.  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  deep  sorrow  in  con- 
trasting More's  spirit,  as  regards  persecution,  with  that 
of  Wolsey,  who  is  said  to  have  found  some  means  to 
save  every  heretic  brought  personally  before  him, 
indeed,  we  find  with  pleasure  that  the  Tenterden 
men  already  mentioned,  whom  Warham  judged  in 
1 51 1  for  denying  the  chief  Roman  doctrines,  were 
not  executed  after  all.  Even  the  threatening  perse- 
cution of  1527  at  Oxford  (which  Dalaber's  personal 
narrative,  given  by  Froude  and  Maitland,  describes  with 
so  much  life)  was  ended  without  bloodshed  by  the 
accused  persons  making  a  kind  of  recantation  and 
'  bearing  a  faggot '  at  St.  Paul's.  Yet  if  More  is  less 
humane  than  Wolsey,  he  is  far  above  both  Audley  (his 
successor  in  the  Chancellorship)  and  Cranmer.  He  would 
not  have  racked  people  with  his  own  hands  like  the 
former  ;  and  would  have  been  incapable  of  the  levity  with 
which  Cranmer  speaks  in  1 533  of  '  one  Frith  who  looketh 
to  go  to  the  fire  for  holding  concerning  the  sacrament 


1535  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  187 

after  the  manner  of  CEcolampadius.'  And  if  we  condemn 
some  of  his  actions,  we  must  remember  that  the  very 
standard  by  which  we  test  them  was  first  created  by  him. 
He  it  is  who  first  assigned  to  human  hfe  its  true  value, 
maintaining  that  it  ought  never  to  be  taken  for  anything 
short  of  murder ;  because,  as  he  puts  it,  law  has  the 
sam.e  right  to  give  a  man  a  dispensation  for  robbery  or 
adultery  as  for  kiUing  another  because  he  steals.  His 
was  the  first  protest  against  the  perpetual  '  paring  away ' 
of  poor  men's  wages,  and  against  the  constant  and  in- 
creasing sycophancy  of  judges.  Above  all  he  declares 
that  in  Utopia  any  one  may  be  of  what  religion  he  will ; 
and  that  even  atheists,  although  excluded  from  govern- 
ment because  they  cannot  rule  nobly,  are  still  not  to  be 
visited  with  any  farther  punishment.  The  least,  then, 
that  can  be  required  of  a  real  student  of  history  is,  first, 
that  such  a  man's  life,  character,  opinions,  and  practice 
shall  all  be  taken  into  account  in  judging  of  him  ;  and 
then  that  it  should  be  considered  whether  a  man  of  high 
honour  who  resolves  to  die  for  a  noble  cause  does  not 
thus  irresistibly  claim  that  the  balance  of  judgment  should 
be  in  his  favour,  even  if  all  his  actions  cannot  be  approved. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


THE  DISSOLUTION   OF   THE    MONASTERIES.      THE 
PILGRIMAGE   OF   GRACE. 

I535-1538. 

The  death  of  More  and  Fisher  soon  appeared  to  have 
been  acts  not  less  stupid  than  wrongful ;  they  were  as 
much  against  Henry's  interest  as  they  should  have  been 
against  his  conscience.     From  the  time  of  his  excommu- 


1 88  The  Early  Tudors.  1535 

nication  he  had  been  wishing  to  conciliate  foreign  Pro- 
Tu   r.  >i  r       testants,  and  in  the  course  of  i5-?i;  he  sent 

The  Bull  of  .  -'-'-' 

Deposition         Fox,  Bishop  of  Hereford,  to  the  various  re- 
rawn  up.  formed  States  of  Germany,  in  order  to  coun- 

teract the  schemes  of  Francis  I.  for  the  re-estabhshmentof 
CathoUc  unity  there.  But  the  Germans,  while  firm  in 
resisting  French  persuasion,  yet  valued  the  learning  of 
the  Renaissance,  of  which  More  had  been  such  a  noble 
representative,  and  distrusted  the  King  who  was  Protest- 
ant in  nothing  but  in  murdering  him  and  in  hating  the 
Pope.  Moreover  both  he  and  Fisher  were  considered 
to  have  been  witnesses,  on  the  whole,  to  evangelical 
truth  in  opposing  Anne's  marriage.  As  to  foreign  sove- 
reigns, Charles  V.  announced  More's  death  with  grave 
and  sincere  concern  to  the  English  ambassador,  who  had 
not  yet  heard  of  it ;  Francis  ventured  to  suggest  that 
banishment  might  in  future  cases  of  the  kind  be  a  better 
punishment  than  death,  and  was  vehemently  rated  by 
Henry  for  such  unfriendly  interference  in  our  internal 
affairs.  At  Rome,  of  course,  the  death  of  Cardinal 
Fisher  destroyed  the  last  hope  of  accommodation  ;  so  that 
the  Bull  of  Deposition  was  at  once  drawn  up,  although 
the  influence  of  both  Charles  and  Francis  was  used  to 
hinder  its  publication.  By  this  instrument,  had  it  been 
published,  all  officers  of  the  Crown  would  have  been  re- 
leased from  their  oath  of  allegiance,  the  entire  nation 
forbidden  under  pain  of  excommunication  to  acknowledge 
Henry,  and  orders  given  to  the  clergy  to  forsake  the 
land,  and  to  the  nobles  to  rise  in  rebellion,  helped  by  the 
faithful  princes  of  Europe.  Charles  V.,  who  had  just  been 
achieving  some  real  and  undoubted  glory  by  the  capture 
of  Tunis  from  the  pirate  Barbarossa,  and  the  recovery 
of  20,000  Christian  prisoners  there,  seemed  marked  out  to 
execute  the  Papal  sentence  ;  and  as  in  crushing  the  ruler 


1536  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  189 

of  Tunis  he  had  deprived  Francis  of  a  powerful  ally 
and  therefore  disposed  him  to  peace  in  Italy,  it  was  not 
impossible  that  both  Powers  might  unite  against  England. 
The  death  of  Katherine,  which  happened  at  Kimbolton 
in  January  1 536,  was  a  gleam  of  light  among  Henry's  mani- 
fold embarrassments ;  so  much  had  he  wished      „ 

'  Execution 

for  it  that  in  the  preceding  November  he  had  of  Anne 
sworn  to  his  Council  that  his  next  Parliament  °  ^^"' 
should  rid  him  of  both  her  and  Mary.  This  Chapuys 
reports  to  the  Emperor  as  having  been  told  him  by  the 
Marchioness  of  Exeter.  Anne  at  first  showed  signs  of 
great  joy  at  her  rival's  death  ;  but  it  was  observed  a  few 
days  later  that  she  seemed  to  recognise  its  true  effect 
upon  her  position.  Hitherto  Henry  had  been  able  to 
choose  only  between  her  and  Katherine,  but  now  there 
were  many  ladies  by  whom  she  might  be  supplanted. 
Soon  after  this  her  hope  of  a  son  was  again  disap- 
pointed, and  she  saw  too  clearly  that  her  last  hold  on 
her  husband  was  gone ;  indeed  he  was  already  plan- 
ning to  marry  Jane  Seymour.  By  Katherine's  death  the 
main  ground  of  quarrel  with  the  Emperor  had  of  course 
been  removed  ;  therefore  it  was  not  impossible,  from  his 
own  point  of  view,  for  Henry  to  be  reconciled  either  to 
him  or  to  the  Pope.  To  show  his  disposition  that  way, 
he  censured  an  untimely  sermon  of  Cranmer's  against 
Imperial  usurpations,  and  was  quite  willing  to  help 
Charles  V.  against  the  Turks  (with  whom  Francis,  on 
the  contrary,  had  just  been  making  a  commercial  treaty) ; 
although,  adhering,  after  the  fashion  of  weak  men,  to  a 
fixed  idea,  he  even  then  demanded  that  Charles  should 
allow  himself  to  have  been  wrong  from  the  first  in 
opposing  the  marriage  with  Anne.  Seeing  that  things 
were  taking  this  direction,  Cromwell  became  convinced 
that  he  had  been  rash  in  pressing  things  so  far  against 


I  go  The  Early  Tudors.  1536 

Rome ;  and  about  the  middle  of  April  it  seems  to  have 
struck  him  that  nothing  would  tend  so  much  to  conciliate 
the  Catholic  party  as  the  sacrifice  of  Anne  Boleyn,  who 
was  detested  by  them  not  only  because  England  had 
broken  with  the  Pope  for  her  sake,  but  because  she  had 
herself  showed  some  Protestant  leanings.  He  is  reported, 
with  apparent  truth,  by  Chapuys,  as  declaring  that  'he 
beo-an  to  contrive  and  conspire  the  said  affair '  (z7  se  meist 
a  fa7itasie  et  conspira  le  diet  affaire)  against  the  Queen  ; 
and  the  way  in  which  he  managed  the  prosecution  seems 
strongly  to  confirm  this  view  of  his  conduct.  For  he 
induced  Henry  to  sign,  on  the  24th  of  April,  1536,  a 
commission  by  which  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Duke  of 
Suffolk,  with  some  other  noblemen  and  any  four  of  the 
judges,  were  to  enquire,  not  into  anything  about  Anne, 
but  generally  'into  all  kinds  of  treason,  by  whomsoever 
committed,'  and  to  try  the  offenders.  Among  the  Com- 
missioners were  the  Queen's  father  the  Earl  of  Wiltshire, 
and  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  her  uncle.  The  Court  being 
thus  constituted,  a  charge  against  Anne  and  its  evidence 
were  next  to  be  provided.  Accordingly,  on  the  30th 
of  the  same  month  a  conversation  was  reported  to 
Cromwell,  as  having  taken  place  on  the  previous  day 
between  Anne  and  Mark  Smeton,  a  musician  of  the 
household,  which  indicated  improper  relations  between 
them.  Smeton  was  immediately  arrested,  and  (with 
what  encouragements  or  under  what  threats  we  know 
not)  confessed  adultery  with  the  Queen.  At  any  rate 
what  he  said  implicated  several  other  young  courtiers, 
particularly  Sir  Francis  Weston,  Henry  Noreys,  and 
William  Brereton;  and  to  these  Anne's  brother,  Lord 
Rochford,  was  afterwards  added.  She  was  accused  of 
the  grossest  misconduct  with  all  five,  and  with  having 
conspired  with  them  to  kill  the  King.     It  is  not  desired 


1536  The  Dissolution  of  the  Mo7tastcrics.  191 

here  to  go  into  the  details  of  these  most  revolting  trials  ; 
yet  it  must  be  remarked  that  Anne  was  said  to  have 
done  acts  of  unchastity  at  times  when  from  the  state  of 
her  health  they  were  all  but  impossible,  and  that  the 
charge  of  compassing  Henry's  death  is  absurd,  seeing 
that  the  moment  it  happened  she  would  have  been 
exposed  defenceless  to  the  whole  vengeance  of  Katherine's 
party.  Her  guilt  has  been  supposed  to  be  proved  by  the 
fact  that  her  father  and  uncle  were  among  the  judges 
who  recognised  it.  But  to  this  it  is  replied  that  Wilt- 
shire was  excused  from  sitting  on  her  trial,  and  that 
Norfolk  had  long  been  hostile  to  her.  Great  stress  has 
also  been  laid  on  the  dying  confessions  or  non-denials  of 
Smeton  and  the  other  accused  persons  ;  but  here,  again, 
there  is  uncertainty.  They  all  said  on  the  scaffold  that 
they  had  deserved  death,  but  not  that  they  had  done  the 
crime  for  which  they  suffered  ;  and  as  for  Smeton's 
earher  confession,  may  he  not  have  made  it  to  escape 
torture,  just  as  in  this  very  year  Sebastiano  Montecuculi 
confessed  for  the  same  reason  that  he  had  poisoned  the 
Dauphin  of  France,  who  was  not  poisoned  at  all  ?  Be- 
sides this,  the  prisoners  were  simply  hanged  or  beheaded, 
none  of  them  suffering  the  more  horrid  penalties  of 
treason  ;  and  it  is  at  least  conceivable  that  they  paid  for 
this  remission  by  not  protesting  their  innocence  at  last — 
caring,  as  a  traveller  of  the  period  remarks  of  English- 
men in  general,  much  more  for  bodily  pain  than  for  death. 
Anne  was  found  guilty  (May  15)  by  a  jury  composed 
almost  entirely  of  gentlemen  in  the  King's  service.  On 
the  17th  Cranmer  held  a  Court  at  Lambeth  in  which  he 
decided,  apparently  because  of  a  shameful  confession  by 
Henry,  that  Anne's  marriage  was  null  and  void  ab  initio. 
It  seemed  to  occur  to  no  one  that  if  she  had  never  been 
married,  the  charge  of  treasonable  adultery  fell  to  the 


192  The  Early  Tudors.  1536 

ground  of  itself.  On  the  19th  the  sword  of  the  Calais 
headsman  freed  Henry  from  his  hated  wife.  People  were 
surprised  at  his  revelries  during  the  trial ;  he  was,  per- 
haps, somewhat  elated  by  seeing  how  many  sovereigns 
were  thinking  how  to  find  him  a  new  queen.  He  chose, 
however,  to  'carve  for  himself,'  and  married  Jane  Seymour 
on  the  day  after  the  execution.  Against  the  general  ex- 
pectation, he  did  not  recognise  Mary  as  legitimate.  The 
Duke  of  Richmond,  his  favourite  child,  the  son  of  his 
early  mistress  Elizabeth  Blount,  was  now  seventeen  years 
old  ;  and  as  Parliament  had  allowed  him  to  appoint  his 
successor  by  will,  there  was  some  thought  of  first  legiti- 
mating the  Duke  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Beauforts),  and 
then  making  him  heir  to  the  crown.  Authority,  both 
Romish  and  Protestant,  had  even  suggested  the  strange 
notion  that  he  should  marry  his  half-sister  Mary,  and 
thus  close  all  controversy.  The  Protestant  Tyndal  ad- 
vised this  ;  and  it  had  been  considered  as  a  possibility 
by  Pope  Clement  VII.,  until  informed  by  his  Council 
that  such  a  permission  was  ultra  vires.  Richmond's  death, 
however,  in  the  course  of  1 536  frustrated  all  such  schemes. 
Instead  of  being  diminished  by  Anne's  death,  Henry's 
unpopularity  with  the  Roman  party  was  now  increasing 
daily,  for  many  reasons.     One  of  these  was 

Henry's  •        i  i 

Protestant  his  already  mentioned  wish  to  form  an  anti- 
eanmgs.  Papal    Icaguc   in    Northern    Europe.      The 

Confession  of  Augsburg  (1530)  had  now  embodied  the 
views  of  the  Lutheran  body,  and  he  had  held  out  hopes 
in  1535  that  he  might  sign  it.  He  had  also  urged  the 
Bishops  to  produce  a  correct  translation  of  the  Bible  ; 
and,  as  they  hesitated,  had  employed  Miles  Coverdale 
to  collect  and  edit  the  various  portions,  perhaps  with 
Tyndal'shelp.  Six  copies  of  the  work,  when  printed,  were 
ordered  to  be  attached  to  stands  in  St.  Paul's,  and  one 


1536  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  193 

to  be  bought  for  every  church  in  England  and  placed  in 
the  choir.  But  what  seemed  most  clearly  to  define  his 
position  was  his  issuing  in  1 536  the  so-called  '  Articles  to 
stablish  Christian  Quietness '  (apparently  composed  by 
himselt),  in  which,  while  on  the  whole  adhering  to  the 
Roman  doctrine,  he  yet  partially  adopted  the  Protestant 
expressions  about  justification,  and  spoke  severely  about 
the  Papal  corruptions  connected  with  Purgatory  and  In- 
dulgences. But,  above  all,  he  had  with  a  strong  hand 
carried  out  his  plans  with  regard  to  the  monasteries  as  a 
reply  to  Paul  lll.'s  Bull  of  Deposition,  which  he  well  knew 
to  exist,  although  it  appears,  in  spite  of  the  assertions  of 
many  historians,  never  to  have  been  published  at  all. 
For  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  there  is  no  contemporary 
copy  of  it  in  England ;  that  Bishop  Burnet  printed  it  for 
the  first  time,  not  from  the  Records,  but  from  a  Roman 
Bullarium ;  that  Hall  and  Foxe  make  no  mention  of  its 
publication ;  and  that  for  several  years  after  this  it  is 
spoken  of  by  the  Romish  party  only  as  likely  to  be  pub- 
lished. 

The  monasteries  of  England  had,  almost  from  a  fatal 
necessity,  degenerated  from  the  principles  on  which  they 
were  founded.  It  may  be  said  in  general 
that  decay  in  such  institutions  can  be  hin-  nionaswdes^ 
dered  only  by  a  system  of  vigorous  inspection 
and  control,  combined  with  authority,  such  as  the  Popes 
had  exercised,  to  break  up  and  remodel  them  according 
to  the  needs  of  the  time.  But  most  of  the  important  Eng- 
lish monasteries  belonged  either  to  the  Cistercian  or  to  one 
of  the  great  Mendicant  Orders  ;  in  any  case  their  superiors 
were  foreigners,  and,  as  such,  could  only  with  great  diffi- 
culty exercise  any  superintendence  in  England.  Thus 
the  rules  enforcing  labour,  study,  or  mission-work  had 
become  relaxed ;  numbers  of  servants  were  kept  in  the 

N 


194  The  Early  Tudors.  1535 

large  foundations  to  work  for  the  monks  ;  and  the  in- 
mates had  in  many  cases  begun  to  fret  against  the  law  of 
celibacy  to  which  they  were  subject.  Their  position  as 
feudal  superiors  also  from  time  to  time  embroiled  them 
with  their  dependents,  so  that  most  violent  armed  rebel- 
lion against  their  authority  was  not  unknown.  Warham, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  feebly  tried  to  abate  the  monastic 
disorders  of  his  own  day ;  and  Wolsey  had  suppressed  a 
few  of  the  poorer  foundations  in  order  to  obtain  funds  for 
endowing  Christchurch.  Now  the  estabhshment  of  the 
Royal  Supremacy  laid  the  abbeys  open  to  attack ;  so  in 
the  summer  of  1535,  just  after  the  death  of  Sir  Thomas 
More,  Cromwell,  as  the  King's  vicegerent  in  ecclesiastical 
matters,  ordered  a  Visitation  of  the  Universities,  the  re- 
ligious houses,  and  all  other  spiritual  corporations  in  the 
kingdom.  That  there  was  no  thought  of  any  such  reform 
as  that  which  had  produced  the  self-devotion  of  the  Thea- 
tines  in  Italy,  or  the  exertions  of  the  Franciscan  body 
there  during  the  plague  of  1528,  is  plain  enough  from 
the  character  of  the  Commissioners.  These  were  Drs. 
Leo-h,  Layton,  and  Aprice,  ecclesiastical  lawyers  of  no 
great  standing,  but  apt  at  ferreting  out  clerical  scandals, 
such  as  Layton  soon  began  relating  to  Cromwell  with 
huge  gusto  and  self-gratulation  at  having  found  such 
desirable  evidence.  Nor  was  the  time  allowed  for  the 
enquiry  a  less  clear  evidence  of  its  intention  ;  this  was 
only  four  months,  after  which  the  Commissioners'  report 
was  to  be  ready  for  the  session  of  Parliament.  As 
there  were  more  than  1,000  monasteries  to  be  reported 
on,  it  was  clear  that  the  work  could  not  be  got  through 
in  the  time,  especially  as  each  foundation  was,  as  a  rule, 
visited  by  two  of  them  successively,  and  there  was  a 
schedule  of  eighty  questions  to  be  gone  into  with  each 
community.     Plainly,  therefore,  the  reporters  must  have 


1535  The  Dissolution  of  the  Mojiasteries.  195 

adopted  very  short  methods  of  getting  evidence  together 
— indeed  they  seem  to  have  chiefly  aimed  at  having 
something  to  say  about  each  ;  and  this  something,  if  evil, 
was  generally  about  the  Abbot  or  Superior,  who,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  often  been  appointed  by  the  King,  or 
some  other  patron,  for  reasons  quite  unconnected  with 
the  discipline  or  welfare  of  the  house. 

It  would  have   been   well   if  all  the  Commissioners' 
work  had  been  like  what  they  did  at  Oxford,  making  very 
real  reforms  and  carrying  off  no  plunder.     At  Magdalen, 
New  College,  and  All  Souls  they  established      ^^^ 
classical  lectures  and  provided  for  their  sup-       Universities 

visited. 

port,  imposing  loss  of  commons  on  all  resident 
students  who  did  not  attend  one  of  them  at  least  daily. 
They  commanded  that  no  monastic  student,  under  pain 
of  being  '  sent  down  '  to  his  cloister,  should  be  found  in 
any  tavern.  They  also  ordered  the  works  of  Duns  Scotus 
to  be  disused — '  a  shallow  way,'  says  the  annalist  of  Oxford, 
'  to  treat  an  author  so  profound  that  wise  men  could 
hardly  understand  him  after  thirty  years'  study.'  Ac- 
cordingly, on  a  second  visit  to  New  College,  '  we  found,' 
reports  Layton,  '  all  the  great  quadrant  court  full  of  the 
leaves  of  Duns,  the  wind  blowing  them  into  every  corner, 
and  Mr.  Grenfell,  a  Buckinghamshire  gentleman,  gather- 
ing them  up  to  trim  sewels  or  blanchers  to  keep  the  deer 
within  the  wood,  thereby  to  have  the  better  cry  with  his 
hounds.'  As  the  agitation  in  the  Church  was  driving 
clerks  to  try  for  a  hving  through  medicine,  the  Commis- 
sioners also  ordained  that  no  member  of  the  University 
should  practise  it  till  he  had  satisfied  the  Professor  of 
Medicine  as  to  his  knowledge. 

From  Oxford  Layton  went  down  into  Kent,  and  on 
Monday,  October  the  22d,  had  the  pleasure  of  detecting 
the  Abbot  of  Langdon  in  a  breach  of  morality.     On  the 


196  The  Early  Tudor s.  1536 

next  day,  as  it  appears,  he  went  on  to  Canterbury '  to 
visit  the  Archbishop's  see,'  intendinsr,  as  he 

Visitation  of  ,         , 

the  Moiias-  says,  to  be  at  Faversham  by  the  evening.  If 
'^"^'^^^  so,  the  late  October  day  must  have  been  well 

occupied;  as,  beside  the  two  journeys,  there  was  an 
anti-Papal  sermon  by  Cranmer  at  the  Cathedral,  and 
an  inventory  to  be  taken  of  the  Christchurch  valu- 
ables. At  Faversham  the  Abbot  was  found  '  too  old 
to  visit  his  domains  actively ' — ^he  had  been  in  office 
since  1498 — but  when  called  upon  in  the  following 
March  to  resign,  he  quietly  replied  '  that  he  was  not  so 
far  enfeebled,  neither  in  body  nor  in  remembrance,  but 
that  he  might  well  accommodate  himself  to  the  gov- 
ernance of  his  poor  house  and  monastery.'  On  the  5th 
of  November  Aprice  wrote  to  Cromwell  that  the  Abbot 
of  Bury  St.  Edmunds  '  delighted  much  in  playing  at  dice 
and  cards,  and  spent  much  money  in  this  and  in  building 
for  pleasure.  He  was  also  fond  of  staying  at  the  various 
granges.  The  monastery,  too,  was  full  of  false  relics ; 
pieces  of  the  true  Cross  enough  to  make  a  cross  of,  some 
of  the  coals  with  which  St.  Lawrence  was  burned,'  and 
the  like.  Meanwhile  Legh  had  joined  Layton  for  the 
Visitation  of  the  northern  abbeys.  At  Chicksand  they 
found  that  two  nuns  had  been  ill-conducted.  At  Leicester 
they  exceptionally  commend  the  authorities  of  St.  Mary's 
Colleges  and  Hospital  as  keeping  these  well  and  honestly, 
and  having  300/.  ready  for  use  in  their  treasury.  '  The 
monks  of  Leicester  Abbey,'  they  say,  '  are  confederate, 
and  will  confess  nothing ' ;  Layton  therefore  intends  to 
object  against  them  things  which  he  had  heard  elsewhere, 
though  not  of  them.  In  Yorkshire  the  Commissioners 
found  instances  of  disgusting  vice,  they  do  not  say  where  ; 
in  St.  Mary's  Abbey  at  York  they  '  expect  to  find  much 
evil  disposition  both  in  the  Abbot  and  the  convent.'     At 


1536  77;,?  Dissolntioti  of  the  Mimasicries.  197 

Fountains  the  Abbot,  '  a  mere  fool  and  idiot,'  and  said  to 
be  grossly  immoral,  had  stolen  the  sexton's  keys,  pos- 
sessed himself  of  a  jewelled  cross,  and  sold  it  with  other 
valuables  to  a  London  jeweller.  The  Commissioners 
announce  that  he  has  been  deposed,  but  secretly,  for  fear 
that  the  Earl  of  Cumberland  should  claim  the  appoint- 
ment ;  Layton  recommends  for  it  a  monk  of  the  house, 
called  Marmaduke,  who  will  pay  400/.  for  the  appoint- 
ment, and  1 ,000/.  of  first-fruits. 

As  not  many  of  the  letters  sent  by  the  Visitors  now 
survive,  there  is  httle  to  add  from  this  source  to  the  ex- 
tracts just  made.  When  the  visitation  of  Fountains  took 
place,  the  meeting  of  Parliament  was  at  hand,  and  the 
Commissioners  set  about  preparing  their  report,  which  is 
said  to  have  been  commonly  called  the  '  Black  Book,' 
and  to  have  excited  so  much  anger  when  read  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  all  with  one  voice  cried  out 
'  Down  with  them  ! '  Selden,  on  the  contrary,  states  that 
Henry  had  to  threaten  the  members  with  death  if  they 
did  not  pass  the  Act  of  Suppression ;  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  debate  upon  it  was  long  and  bitter.  The 
'  Black  Book '  itself,  if  there  ever  was  such  a  document, 
has  perished  ;  three  MSS.  however  remain,  generally 
called  the  'Comperta,'  which  purport  to  be  extracts  from 
it,  and  to  analyse  the  confessions  made  at  different 
monasteries.  In  some  instances  the  '  Comperta '  can  be 
compared  with  the  Visitors'  letters,  as  for  instance  with 
regard  to  Fountains.  We  have  seen  what  was  said  of 
this  by  Layton,  which  is  far  from  describing  the  place  as 
the  universal  sink  of  iniquity  of  which  the  '  Comperta  ' 
speaks.  Nor  can  it  well  be  replied  that  the  original  and 
detailed  confessions  may  have  been  in  writing  and  there- 
fore different  from  what  the  Commissioners  received 
orally  ;  for,  if  so,  some  of  them  would   have  been  still 


198  The  Early  Tudors.  1536 

among  the  Records,  which  is  not,  the  case.  According  to 
Burnet's  account,  the  '  Black  Book  '  itself  was  destroyed 
by  Reginald  Pole  under  Queen  Mary ;  but  if  it  was  in 
Henry's  reach  at  the  time  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  why 
did  he  say  nothing  of  what  would  have  been  the  best  of 
all  proofs  that  he  had  done  well  and  not  ill  in  destroying 
the  monasteries  ?  To  this  it  must  be  added,  on  the 
highest  authority,  that,  as  a  rule,  documents  discreditable 
to  Romanism  were  not  destroyed  under  Queen  Mary. 

After  all,  the  Act  distinguished  the  houses  that  were 
to  be  suppressed,  not  by  their  greater  immorality,  but, 
as  Wolsey  had  done,  by  their  less  wealth.  '  Parliament 
had  heard  from  the  King,'  so  said  the  Act,  '  of  enormities 
done  in  the  abbeys  ;  he  in  turn  had  learned  these  from  his 
Commissioners  and  from  other  credible  witnesses.'  It 
was  therefore  ordained  that  those  which  had  an  income 
less  than  200/.  a  year  should  revert  to  the  Crown  instead 
of  to  the  founders'  heirs  as  we  might  have  expected.  But 
Henry  was  authorised  to  preserve  as  many  of  them  as  he 
pleased  by  letters  patent ;  and  out  of  the  376  then  confis- 
cated thirty-seven  were  refounded  in  the  following  August, 
and  remained  till  the  general  dissolution.  At  first  a  fresh 
Commission  had  been  formed,  in  which  neighbouring 
gentlemen  were  in  each  case  included,  to  settle  which 
should  be  preserved ;  but  the  reports  from  this  were  so 
uniformly  favourable  to  the  abbeys  that  Henry  rudely 
accused  the  members  of  receiving  bribes  and  soon  can- 
celled it.  He  at  the  same  time  placed  the  remaining 
monasteries  under  a  rule  which  aimed  at  shutting  up 
monks  rather  than  utilising  them  ;  and  rather  than  sub- 
mit to  this  a  number  surrendered  to  him  of  their  own 
accord. 

Such  was  the  celebrated  Visitation  of  the  Monasteries. 
Instead  of  being  made  centres  of  learning  and  education, 


1536  The  Dissolution  of  the  Monasteries.  199 

they  were  generally  demolished  and  the  materials  sold 
by  the  courtiers  to  whom  Henry  granted  them.  How 
:  far  the  monks  deserved  their  fate  there  is  little  evidence 
to  show.  As  Church  writers  of  earlier  times  seldom  spared 
accusations  of  immorality  against  the  regular  clergy,  and 
as  these  bodies  had  very  little  effective  visitation,  it  is 
natural  to  suppose  that  their  morals  would  in  some  cases 
be  those  of  a  large  school  or  college  left  to  itself.  But  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  Record  Office  contains  a 
huge  '  mystery  of  iniquity '  in  documents  which  escape 
publication  by  being  too  bad  for  it.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  historians  will  always  be  reduced,  in  the  absence  of 
sufficient  evidence  either  way,  to  acquit  or  condemn  these 
institutions  rather  by  their  own  notions  of  the  probable 
than  on  any  quite  convincing  arguments. 

As  the  year  1536  rolled  on,  it  was  plain  that  the  con- 
spiring lords  had  lost  their  opportunity.  The  Emperor, 
in  whose  help  they  trusted,  was  now  most  un- 
likely to  send  troops  either  to  England  or  rebellion. 
Ireland,  as  a  fresh  war  with  France  for  Milan 
had  broken  out,  and  by  August  in  this  year  the  sovereigns 
were  engaged  in  a  cross  invasion,  with  the  result  that 
Francis  fortified  himself  in  Turin,  while  the  Emperor  lost 
30,000  of  his  veterans  from  famine  and  disease  in  his  at- 
tack on  Provence.  Consequently  the  Northern  peers  re- 
mained inactive,  though  sullen  ;  and  the  conspiracy  would 
probably  have  died  out,  had  not  the  commons  of  the 
same  counties  suddenly  blazed  into  an  insurrection  from 
motives  partly  the  same  as  those  of  the  nobles  and  partly 
peculiar  to  themselves.  Like  their  betters  they  objected 
to  the  plebeian  advisers  of  the  King,  the  promotion  of 
Cranmer  and  other  heretics  in  the  Church,  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  monasteries,  and  a  new  Statute  of  Uses  which 
made  it  very  difficult  for  landowners  to  throw  on  their 


200  The  Early  Tudor s.  1536 

estates  the  charge  of  providing  for  their  younger  children. 
But  as  a  revolution  is  seldom  really  vigorous  unless  a 
question  of  land  is  at  the  bottom  of  it,  so  to  these  griev- 
ances was  added  a  deep-felt  middle-class  discontent  at 
the  system  of  enclosures  and  sheep-feeding  which  still 
continued  to  harass  farmers  of  the  old  school  in  a 
manner  which  they  only  half  understood  but  entirely 
resented. 

The  town  of  Louth,  in  the  marshes  of  East  Lincoln- 
shire, is  even  now  somewhat  out  of  the  world.  The 
country  round  it  is  so  intersected  with  'cuts,'  so  liable  to 
inroads  of  the  sea,  and  so  incapable  of  growing  trees, 
that  field-sports  are  out  of  the  question  in  it ;  therefore 
the  resident  gentry  are  i^^s,  and  a  system  of  small  hold- 
ings still  prevails  there,  creating,  as  usual,  a  most  inde- 
pendent spirit  in  the  owners.  This  was  the  district 
where  revolt  was  first  to  show  itself.  The  nunnery  of 
Legbourne,  close  to  the  town,  was  on  the  point  of  sup- 
pression, and  Heneage,  one  of  the  Visitors,  was  expected 
with  the  Chancellor  of  Lincoln  Cathedral  on  this  unpopular 
errand.  On  Monday  the  2d  of  October,  1536,  he  arrived, 
and  a  furious  riot  instantly  broke  out,  from  which  he  took 
refuge  in  the  church,  but  was  brought  back  and  forced  to 
swear  that  he  would  be  true  to  the  commons.  The  book 
containing  Cromwell's  commission  was  torn  in  pieces,  and 
his  servants  placed  in  the  stocks.  Shortly  after  this  a 
similar  rising  began  at  Horncastle,  and  was  joined  by  a 
number  of  gentry  and  by  the  Abbot  of  Barlings,  who 
appeared  with  his  canons  in  full  armour  ;  there  too  the 
celebrated  banner  of  the  Five  Wounds  of  Christ  was 
raised  for  the  first  time.  The  unhappy  Chancellor  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  mob  and  was  murdered ;  and  on 
the  same  day  there  was  a  rising  at  Lincoln,  and  Bishop 
Longland's  palace  was  plundered.    If  the  nobles  had  now 


1536  The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  201 

come  forward  to  head  the  movement,  and  strengthened 
it  by  the  forces  at  their  command,  Henry's  reign  and  hfe 
might  soon  have  come  to  an  end  togetlicr.  However, 
Lord  Hussey,  who  had  spoken  much  of  rebelUon,  could 
not  persuade  himself  to  take  either  side,  but  remained  in- 
active at  Sleaford  ;  and  within  a  week  from  the  outbreak 
the  advanced  guard  of  the  royal  forces  arrived  at  Stam- 
ford. Two  days  later  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  with  the  main 
body  joined  them,  to  hear  that  the  insurrection  was 
already  breaking  up.  In  this  emergency  Henry  had 
shown  a  really  royal  firmness — not  ill  pleased,  perhaps,  to 
have  nobler  occupations  than  those  which  had  so  long 
enthralled  him.  To  the  written  demands  of  the  rioters 
for  the  dismissal  of  low  counsellors  and  the  like,  he  replied 
that  the  '  rude  commons  of  one- shire,  and  that  one  of  the 
most  brute  and  beastly  of  the  whole  realm,  should  not 
be  allowed  to  rule  their  prince  ;  his  orders  were  that  they 
should  disperse  at  once,  and  surrender  a  hundred  of 
their  chief  men.'  Expecting  on  this  to  be  delivered  up, 
the  leaders  thought  of  cutting  their  way  through  and 
placing  themselves  in  Suffolk's  hands.  They  were,  how- 
ever, allowed  to  pass  without  resistance,  and  the  first  act 
of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace  was  at  an  end. 

But  a  far  harder  trial  was  to  come  ;  for  on  the  8th  of 
October  a  much  better-organised  insurrection   burst  out 
in  Yorkshire.   A  paper  urging  a  rebellion  for 
the  sake  of  God's  truth  had  been  circulated  in      shire  insur- 
that  county  under  the  signature  of  a  popular 
young  lawyer  named  Robert  Aske,  who  had  been  watch- 
ing the  Lincolnshire   events ;   and   on   returning   home, 
although  he  declared  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  paper, 
he  found   himself  stormily  welcomed   as   leader.     Lord 
Darcy,   the   chief   person  in  Yorkshire,   followed   Lord 
Hussey's  example   in   temporising,  and  shut  himself  up 


202  The  Early  Tudors.  1536 

with  a  few  foreigners  in  Pontcfract  Castle,  although  he 
had  been  all  along  one  of  the  conspiring  nobles,  and  was 
favourable  to  the  objects  proposed  by  the  rebels,  who  on 
the  14th  of  October  mustered  on  Weighton  Heath,  about 
eighteen  miles  east  of  York ;  their  troops  being  picked 
men,  well  armed  and  equipped  for  war.  Having  sum- 
moned Hull  in  vain,  they  left  half  their  forces  to  besiege  it, 
while  the  rest  marched  on  York  and  were  unhesitatingly 
welcomed  there ;  the  monasteries  were  cleared  and  their  old 
inhabitants  restored.  They  then  marched  to  Pontefract, 
where,  after  some  hesitation,  Lord  Darcy  joined  them 
just  when  Lord  Shrewsbury  was  at  hand  with  forces  for 
his  relief.  Soon  Hull  surrendered,  and  at  length  the 
small  castle  of  Skipton,  which  still  remains  entire,  was 
the  only  strong  place  in  Yorkshire  unsubdued ;  while 
large  rebel  reinforcements  were  arriving  from  Durham 
under  Lords  Latimer  and  Lumley,  and  two  sons  of  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland  had  already  brought  up  the 
standard  of  St.  Cuthbert  for  a  southward  march.  Even 
the  Archbishop  of  York,  who  had  been  with  Lord  Darcy 
at  Pontefract,  had  for  the  time  given  in  his  adhesion. 
Thirty  thousand  excellent  troops  now  moved  under  Aske's 
command  against  Doncaster,  more  than  a  third  of  them 
being  mounted  and  clad  in  armour.  But  Henry,  ming- 
ling prudence  with  firmness,  used  a  A'ariety  of  means  to 
break  it  up,  reminding  Lord  Latimer  and  others  how  dis- 
graceful to  them  it  was  to  be  serving  under  a  man  of  such 
low  rank  as  Aske,  and  explaining  by  means  of  papers 
scattered  all  over  the  North  that  a  plan  of  Cromwell's  for 
parish  registers  had  no  reference  to  taxation,  and  that 
none  of  the  recent  Church  measures  had  been  hostile  to 
true  religion.  When  the  rebels  reached  the  banks  of  the 
Don,  they  found  that  he  had  wisely  opposed  to  them  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk  and  Lords  Shrewsbury,  Rutland,  Hunt- 


1536  The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace.  203 

ingdon,  and  Talbot,  all  men  popular  in  the  North,  yet 
evidently  resolved  to  obey  the  King's  orders  whatever 
happened.  It  was  impossible  to  force  Doncaster  Bridge 
in  face  of  their  artillery,  and  twice,  when  an  attack  had 
been  planned,  a  storm  made  the  river  too  deep  to  cross, 
the  floods  seeming  as  fatal  to  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace  as 
that  of  the  Severn  had  been  to  Buckingham's  revolt  in 
1483.  Thus  Aske  was  compelled  to  negotiate  ;  his  terms 
being  that  all  concerned  should  receive  a  pardon,  and 
that  their  Articles  of  Accommodation  should  be  transmitted 
to  the  King.  These  included  restoration  of  the  Pope's 
authority,  and  condign  punishment  for  all  concerned  in 
overthrowing  it,  among  whom  Cromwell,  Layton  and 
Legh,  and  the  reforming  Bishops  were  especially  named 
(the  penalty  suggested  for  the  last  being  '  fire  or  such 
other '),  remission  of  taxes,  enforcement  of  the  Acts  against 
enclosure,  and  a  few  others.  But  Henry  now  began  to 
feel  that  the  game  was  in  his  own  hands.  Aske  and 
Darcy  were,  he  plainly  saw,  men  who  wished  for  revolu- 
tion only  if  it  could  be  had  without  overt  acts  of  rebellion. 
He  therefore  detained  Aske's  messengers  for  a  fortnight, 
firmly  refusing  to  hold  a  Parliament  till  the  crisis  was 
over,  or  even  to  grant  an  unreserved  pardon.  The  leaders 
would,  he  felt  sure,  find  their  scheme  of  a  Northern  Parlia- 
ment impracticable,  and  be  unable  to  get  help  in  time 
from  the  Emperor,  or  to  bring  over  to  them  the  coun- 
try south  of  the  Trent.  He  therefore  ordered  Nor- 
folk to  reoccupy  the  line  of  the  Don  which  he  had  aban- 
doned, and  to  maintain  it  at  all  hazards.  Yet  as  more 
and  more  insurgents  gradually  came  in  from  the  North, 
and  the  severe  weather  made  it  difficult  to  keep  the  field 
against  them,  Henry  was  at  last  induced  to  relent.  On 
the  2d  of  December  news  came  that  he  had  granted  a  full 
pardon,  promised  to  hold  a  Parliament  at  York,  and  con- 


204  The  Early  Tiidors.  1537 

sented  to  enquire  into  the  question  of  enclosures.  On 
hearing  this  Aske  instantly  threw  off  his  badge  with  the 
Five  Wounds,  and  declared  that  henceforth  he  would 
wear  no  device  but  the  King's.  Nor  was  Henry  unfaithful, 
for  the  time  at  least,  to  his  part  of  the  compact.  He  had  be- 
fore checked  and  reproved  as  dishonourable  Norfolk's  de- 
sire to  make  terms  with  the  intention  of  breaking  them;  and 
he  now  admitted  to  his  presence  the  insurgent  leaders  and 
explained  to  them  how  little  reason  there  had  been  for  the 
outbreak.  One  of  these  was  Aske  himself;  the  King 
said  that  he  took  him  now  for  his  faithful  subject,  and 
wished  to  hear  from  him  the  history  of  the  rebellion. 
Aske  in  return  warned  the  King  of  the  dangerous  discon- 
tent still  remaining  in  Yorkshire,  and  of  the  general  fear 
that  the  pardon  would  be  delusive.  In  fact  early  in  1 537 
partial  insurrections,  entirely  disavowed  by  the  late 
leaders,  were  raised  by  Sir  Francis  Bigod  in  Yorkshire, 
and  by  Nichol  Musgrave  in  Cumberland.  As  these  were 
believed  to  have  been  instigated  by  the  monks,  express 
and  stern  orders  were  sent  to  put  to  death  any  who  were 
taken ;  and  in  obedience  to  these  about  seventy-four  per- 
sons were  hanged  on  the  walls  of  Carlisle.  Of  the  Lin- 
colnshire prisoners  nineteen  with  Lord  Hussey  were  exe- 
cuted after  trial ;  and,  saddest  of  all,  the  new  insurrec- 
tions drew  on  the  death  of  Aske  and  his  colleagues,  who 
were  alleged  on  slight  evidence  to  have  gone  against  the 
government  in  them  and  thus  to  have  forfeited  their  pardon. 
Lady  Bulmer  was  burned  alive  in  Smithfield  for  a  plot  to 
carry  off  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the  Abbots  of  Fountains 
and  Jorvaulx  were  hanged,  and,  strangely  enough,  Lan- 
caster Herald,  the  King's  own  messenger,  who  had  boldly 
faced  Aske  at  Pontefract,  now  shared  the  same  fate  be- 
cause he  had  disgraced  his  tabard  by  kneeling  to  a  rebel 
in  order  to  dissuade  him  from  his  enterprise.     In  spite  of 


1537  The  Pilgritnage  of  Grace.  205 

the  treasons  of  the  Northern  Abbots,  their  monasteries 
were  not  at  once  confiscated  ;  but  their  offence  was  held 
to  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  claiming  possession  at  any 
time.  There  is  a  curious  Lancashire  tradition  that  the 
Abbot  of  Whalley  had  been  driven  into  insurrection  by  a 
stratagem  of  Aske's,  who  managed  to  get  the  great  con- 
vent-beacon fired,  and  so  made  it  appear  that  the  signal 
had  been  given  by  the  Abbot  himself ;  if  this  is  true,  it 
did  not  save  the  unfortunate  man's  life  nor  his  monastery. 
Soon  the  great  abbeys  of  Jorvaulx,  Bridlington,  and  Fur- 
ness  were  suppressed,  and  not  long  after  this  Chertsey, 
Castleacre,  Lewes,  and  Leicester  surrendered  under  the 
old  Act.  To  these  must  be  added  St.  Augustine's,  Canter- 
bury, the  mother  of  English  Christianity,  which  has  been 
so  nobly  and  happily  restored  in  our  own  time  as  a  hard- 
working Missionary  College. 

The  point  to  which  the  English  Reformation  had  now 
advanced  doctrinally  is  indicated  by  two  events.  One  of 
these  was  Henry's  passionate  refusal  to  let  England  be 
represented  at  the  Council  of  Mantua,  which  even  Luther 
had  accepted  in  1535  on  the  proposal  of  the  ^^^ 
lately  elected  Pope,  Paul  III.,  and  his  vehe-  'Bishops' 
mcnt  exertions  to  hinder  the  German  Protest- 
ants from  attending  it,  on  the  ground  that  it  belonged 
not  to  the  Pope  but  to  princes  to  summon  such  assemblies. 
The  other  was  the  pubhcation  by  authority  in  1537  of  the 
'  Institution  of  a  Christian  Man,'  drawn  up  chiefly  by 
Cranmer  and  Bishop  Fox,  and  generally  called  the 
'  Bishops'  Book.'  Its  plan  was  to  represent  the  Christian 
faith,  article  by  article,  not  as  bare  dogmas,  but  as  power- 
ful to  influence  men's  hearts  and  fives.  It  is  anti-Roman 
mainly  as  teaching  that,  wherever  the  faith  is  held,  there 
the  Church  is,  and  that  no  Church  has  rule  over  any 
other  ;  in  contrasting  strongly  the  Church  militant  and  its 


2o6  The  Early  Tiidors.  1537 

admixture  of  evil  with  the  invisible  and  unfailing  Church 
junseen  ;  and  in  speaking  much  more  of  the  work  of  the 
priesthood  and  their  obedience  to  civil  rule  than  of  in- 
herent powers  possessed  by  them.  While  in  terms  ad- 
mitting seven  sacraments,  it  still  defines  them  much 
as  Protestants  would  have  done.  It  is  curious  that  it  re- 
peatedly prohibits  as  offensive  to  God  all  divination, 
palmistry,  or  witchcraft ;  and  an  Act  of  Parliament  passed 
in  1 541  throws  light  on  this  by  showing  that  a  system  had 
grown  up  of  searching  by  supernatural  means  for  the 
treasures  built  up  or  buried  in  the  ruined  monasteries, 
whose  exact  position  was  now  forgotten. 

On  the  20th  of  October,  1537,  the  long-wished-for  Prince 
of  Wales  was  at  length  born,  and  many  regulations  were 
made  for  watching  a  life  so  precious.    At  the 
war"d  born'         Same  time  the  Queen's  brother  Sir  Edward 
Lambert  Seymour  was  made  Earl  of  Hertford,  Sir  Wil- 

liam Fitzwilliams  Earl  of  Southampton,  and 
Sir  W.  Russell  Lord  Russell.  As  if  it  were  fated  that  the 
hope  of  the  dynasty  was  to  rest  on  one  son,  the  Queen, 
who  seemed  at  first  to  be  doing  well,  took  cold  and  died 
in  four  days.  Her  virtues  and  graces  have  been  exag- 
gerated by  history ;  yet  Henry's  grief  was  sincere,  and 
proved  by  his  ordering  1,200  masses  for  her  soul  and 
remaining  a  widower  till  1539.  The  submissions  which 
the  Princess  Mary  had  been  long  offering  were  now  ac- 
cepted ;  and,  though  not  acknowledged  as  legitimate,  it 
was  understood  that  she  was  placed  in  the  line  of  suc- 
cession. About  the  same  time  the  navy,  which  was 
in  the  utmost  decay,  was  so  far  restored  as  to  be  able  to 
guard  our  coasts  from  the  secure  insolence  of  pirates. 
Considering  Henry's  early  predilection  for  the  sea,  it  is 
strange  to  hear  of  Spaniards  and  Frenchmen  daring  to 
attack  one  another  in  our  harbours,  and  of  English  vessels 


1 538  End  of  the  Abbeys.  207 

being  plundered  by  corsairs  within  sight  of  land. 
However,  a  small  fleet  was  now  fitted  out  which 
successfully  fought  a  French  plundering  squadron  in 
Mount's  Bay;  single  pirates  were  captured  here  and 
there,  and  our  harbours  put  in  a  state  of  defence.  The 
expenses  were  paid  out  of  the  Abbeys ;  this  being  the 
chief  national  purpose  (except  indeed  the  foundation  of 
six  new  bishoprics)  achieved  by  the  many  spoliations 
which  went  on  through  1538  and  1539.  One  remarkable 
instance  of  this  was  the  destruction  of  the  shrine  of  St. 
Thomas  of  Canterbury,  from  which  twenty-six  cartloads 
of  treasure  were  taken  ;  a  paragraph  added  at  this  time 
to  the  unpublished  Bill  of  Deposition  gives  some  credit 
to  the  story  that  St.  Thomas  himself  was  summoned  to 
appear  (much  as  the  dead  Pope  Formosus  was  by  his 
successor)  and  plead  to  the  charge  of  treason  against 
Henry  II.  On  the  same  view  of  history  a  friar  named 
Forrest,  who  had  asserted  that  Becket  and  Fisher  were 
alike  martyrs,  was  burned  in  a  fire  made  with  the  wood  of 
a  celebrated  Welsh  image  called  '  Derfel  Gadarn,'  which 
had  been  supposed  to  have  power  to  draw  souls  out  of 
hell.  An  exhibition  was  also  made  at  Court  of  the 
mechanism  by  which  the  statue  of  Christ  at  Boxley  had 
been  made  to  move  its  head  and  weep.  It  really  seemed 
as  if  the  Reformation  had  taken  the  '  holding-turn;'  such 
certainly  was  Latimer's  view  when  he  preached  Forrest's 
death-sermon,  in  the  firm  belief  that  the  birth  of  Edward 
had  secured  the  victory  of  Protestantism  among  us  and 
made  God,  as  he  expressed  it,  '  really  an  English  God.' 
But  causes  of  an  opposite  tendency  were  also  at  work, 
undivined  by  the  simple-minded  Bishop  of  Worcester. 
Negotiations  had  been  going  on  for  the  King's  marriage 
with  the  Duchess  of  Milan,  Charles  V.'s  niece;  and  this 
required,  from  the  lady's  point  of  view,  a  Papal  dispensa- 


2o8  The  Early  Tudors.  1539 

tion.  Such  difficulties  might  possibly  be  got  over  by 
inducing  the  Emperor  to  break  with  the  Pope  as  Henry 
had  done;  but  there  was  absolutely  no  hope  of  this, 
unless  England  could  be  shown  to  be  orthodox  in  spite 
of  the  schism.  Henry  was  also  moved  in  the  same 
direction  by  a  letter  from  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse 
against  Anabaptism,  which  had  shocked  all  Germany 
in  1535  by  its  unbridled  rule  of  polygamy  and  murder  at 
Miinster.  It  is  also  clear  that  he  felt  deeply  scandalised 
at  the  profanity  and  mockery  of  holy  things  which  was 
getting  rife  in  his  own  dominions.  All  these  motives 
made  him  wish  to  give  some  striking  proof  that  his  faith 
was  sound;  and  a  suitable  opportunity  soon  occurred. 
John  Lambert,  who  had  been  a  friend  of  Tyndal,  was 
condemned  in  the  Archbishop's  Court  for  denying  tran- 
substantiation,  and  appealed  to  the  King.  Henry  heard 
the  cause  in  person  at  Whitehall,  showed  his  animus 
against  the  prisoner  by  taunting  him  with  having  two 
names,  forced  him  to  say  'Aye  '  or  '  No '  without  qualifica- 
tion to  the  question  whether  Christ's  body  is  in  the 
sacrament,  crushed  him  with  the  text  '  This  is  my  Body,' 
and  then  left  him  to  die,  saying  that  '  the  King  would  be 
no  patron  of  heretics.'  This  was  evidently  no  freak  or 
accident,  but  the  sign  of  a  settled  policy  ;  the  next  chapter 
will  show  how  it  was  to  be  carried  out,  how  resisted,  and 
in  what  the  resistance  was  to  end. 


1538  The  Yorkist  Conspiracy.  iq)() 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    YORKIST    CONSPIRACY.      ANNE   OF   CLEVES.      THE 
SIX   ARTICLES.      THE    FALL   OF   CROMWELL. 

1538-1539- 

It  seemed  fated  that  revolts  against  Henry  should  fail  for 
want  of  combination.     This,  as  we  have  seen, 

,  ,  ,  -11  •  r   1  Lord  Exeter 

had  been  the  case  with  the  conspiracy  of  the  and  the 
nobles  and  the  two  acts  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  six  Articles^ 
Grace ;  and  now  the  fourth  division  of  the 
same  general  movement  was  to  be  managed  still  more 
impotently,  and  to  bring  still  wider  ruin  on  its  promoters. 
The  House  of  York  was  in  1538  chiefly  represented 
by  the  Marquis  of  Exeter,  whose  mother.  Lady  Courtenay, 
was  Edward  IV.'s  daughter,  and  by  Lady  Salisbury,  who 
was  daughter  to  George  Duke  of  Clarence,  niece  to 
King  Edward,  and  sister  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick  who  had 
perished  with  Warbeck.  The  sons  of  this  venerable  lady 
were  Lord  Montagu,  and  Arthur,  Reginald,  and  Geoffrey 
Pole.  The  Marquis  of  Exeter  had  unwillingly  joined  in 
the  suppression  of  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  yet  remained 
bitterly  hostile  to  Cromwell  and  the  new  teaching. 
Since  then  he  had  been  complained  of  as  hindering  the 
course  of  justice  in  his  own  county;  and  now  informa- 
tion came  from  members  of  his  household  that  he  was 
raising  men  in  Cornwall  with  the  view  of  getting  himself 
named  heir  to  the  Crown,  and  from  a  painter  at  the 
turbulent  Cornish  village  of  St.  Kevern  that  orders  had 
been  given  for  a  banner  of  the  Five  Wounds.  On  farther 
enquiry  it  appeared  that  the  tenacious  Cornishmcn  had 
not  forgotten  Blackheath  Field,  and  still  longed  to  over- 
o 


2IO  The  Early  Tudors.  1538 

throw  the  Tudor  dynasty.  That  the  Poles  shared  in 
the  plot  was  presently  made  too  clear  by  the  cowardice 
of  Sir  Geoffrey,  who,  to  shield  himself,  volunteered 
evidence  that  his  brother  Lord  Montagu  and  Lord  and 
Lady  Exeter  were  all  in  correspondence  with  Cardinal 
Reginald  Pole.  The  danger  was  serious ;  for  other 
evidence  showed  that  Paul  III.  was  plotting  a  Spanish 
conquest  of  Ireland  and  had  sent  Pole  to  Liege  that 
he  might  be  near  enough  to  hold  all  the  threads  of 
the  intrigue  together.  And,  worst  of  all,  the  Emperor 
had  for  some  unexplained  purpose  collected  200  ships 
at  Antwerp.  The  strongest  measures  were  therefore 
adopted ;  Exeter  and  Montagu  were  put  on  their  trial 
and  condemned,  not  for  the  conspiracy,  which  it  was 
better  to  keep  as  secret  as  possible,  but  as  traitors  in 
word;  Lady  Exeter  and  Lady  Salisbury  were  attainted 
and  imprisoned  in  the  Tower.  On  this  occasion  Henry 
asked  the  Judges  whether  Parliament  could  attaint  with- 
out giving  any  reason  ;  their  reply  was  that  the  question 
was  dangerous,  that  Parliament  is  bound  to  set  an 
example  not  of  lawlessness,  but  of  justice;  yet  that  if 
it  did  so  deal  with  any  one,  his  attainder  would  hold. 
It  might  have  been  expected  that  being  thus  attacked  by 
the  Pope  would  have  made  Henry  more  Protestant ;  yet 
it  had  not  this  effect,  as  he  seemed  still  anxious  to  prove 
himself  as  faithful  as  any  rebel  could  be  to  the  old  religion, 
undeterred  by  a  danger  which  after  all  had  not  been 
extreme.  He  also  really  hated,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
spirit  of  ribaldry  which  had  set  in  under  pretence  of 
religion.  To  meet  this  he  first  published  an  earnest  and 
even  touching  exhortation  to  decent  reverence  in  externals, 
and  then,  after  proclaiming  an  amnesty  for  past  offences 
against  religion,  set  himself  to  consider  how  they  might 
be  prevented  in  future.     Even  on  the  principles  of  our 


1539 


The  Six  Articles. 


own  time  some  punishment  was  required  to  check 
disorder ;  for  Bible-reading  aloud  in  church  had  been 
made  an  excuse  for  interrupting  the  service  and  abusing 
its  minister,  and  if  a  zealous  Protestant  disliked  any 
church-ceremony,  he  was  not  unlikely  to  rate  the  clergy- 
man performing  it,  and  to  tell  him  loudly  that  he  '  did 
nought.'  Some  were  reported  as  '  common  singers 
against  the  sacraments  and  ceremonies,'  others  as  players 
of  interludes  railing  on  the  priesthood,  others  again  as 
mimicking  the  elevation  of  the  Host  with  the  most  odious 
profanity.  To  deal  with  this  state  of  things,  a  Com- 
mission was  formed  of  Cromwell,  the  two  Archbishops, 
and  six  Bishops  representing  various  parties;  but,  as 
these  could  not  agree  on  their  report,  or  at  any  rate  did 
not  send  it  in  at  once,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  moved  in  the 
House  of  Lords  that  Parliament  as  a  whole  should 
discuss  the  main  points  of  controversy  and  settle  the  law 
concerning  them.  The  result  was  an  Act  imposing  by 
lay  authority  alone  the  celebrated  '  Six  Articles,'  the  very 
sound  of  which  was  thought  certain  to  daunt  the  profane. 
In  the  first  of  these  transubstantiation,  the  very  antithesis 
to  Protestantism,  was  again  and  finally  affirmed ;  any 
one  denying  it  was  to  be  burned  without  any  chance  of 
saving  himself  by  retraction.  In  the  next  four  com- 
munion in  one  kind  was  asserted  to  be  sufficient,  the 
observance  of  vows  of  chastity  was  enjoined,  and  private 
masses  and  auricular  confession  maintained  ;  whoever 
twice  denied  any  of  these  was  to  suffer  death  as  a  felon. 
All  marriages  contracted  by  priests  were  pronounced 
void,  and  the  wives  were  to  be  dismissed  by  a  certain 
day.  To  refuse  communion  or  confession  was  also 
felony. 

Of  course  if  this  Act  had  been  fully  enforced,  there 
would  have  been  a  persecution  worthy  of  Alva  or  Torque- 


212  The  Early  Tudor s.  1539 

mada.  And  for  a  few  days  the  risk  of  this  appeared 
considerable — as  in  the  City  of  London,  where  the  Roman 
party  formed  a  committee  at  Mercers'  Hall,  and  de- 
nounced'' not  less  than  500  of  their  fellow-citizens  as 
heretics.  But  the  King  was  not  inclined  to  persecute  on 
this  scale  ;  he  allowed  the  accused  to  be  securities  for 
one  another,  and  so  dismissed  them.  Partly  from  his 
backwardness  and  partly  from  Cromwell's  opposition,  the 
Six  Articles,  though  professedly  in  force  for  eight  years, 
were  really  so  only  at  intervals,  and  when  Henry  gave 
permission.  As  there  were  four  of  .these  short  persecu- 
tions in  the  remainder  of  the  reign,  some  of  them  specially 
cruel,  and  costing  on  the  whole  twenty-seven  lives,  the 
result  of  the  Act  is  sufficiently  lamentable  not  to  need 
exaggerations ;  historians  therefore  should  not  have 
spoken  of  Gardiner  and  the  Bishops  as  '  daily  sending 
men  to  the  stake '  under  it.  One  of  its  first  consequences 
was  that  Cranmer  sent  his  wife  abroad,  and  Latimer  and 
Shaxton  were  deprived  of  their  sees.  At  about  the  same 
time  an  Act  of  Parliament  vested  the  abbey  lands  in  the 
King  and  those  to  whom  he  granted  them,  thus  establish- 
ing, as  Mr.  Hallam  remarks,  the  wealth  of  great  families 
like  the  Russells,  who  were  to  be  famous  in  after  years, 
and  at  last  to  become  the  surest  barrier  against  tyranny 
in  England.  So  was  completed  the  dissolution  of  the 
monasteries,  which  every  historian  must  be  glad  at  last 
to  dismiss  ;  unhappily  some  of  its  last  scenes  were  also 
the  ugliest,  as  when  the  Abbot  of  Glastonbury,  who  had 
hidden  his  plate  in  the  hope  of  better  times,  was  hanged 
for  this  crime  at  the  top  of  the  '  Tor  '  close  by,  to  be  seen 
far  and  wide  across  the  Somersetshire  plain. 

In  strong  contrast  with  such  horrors  stands  that  ad- 
mission of  Wales  into  the  English  polity  which  is  the  most 
honourable  thing  Henry  ever  did ;  indeed  its  effect  on 


1539  Welsh  Legislation.  213 

Welsh  turbulence  has  been  compared  by  Burke  to  the 
'  calming  of  the  tempest  when  the  "  Twins  " 
are  first  seen  above  the  horizon.'  According  for^waks" 
to  existing  laws,  no  Welshman  could  buy  land 
or  house  in  or  near  any  city  or  town  in  the  Marches,  or  be 
a  burgess  of  any  corporate  Enghshtown,  or  an  apprentice 
in  any  English  town  whatever.  The  manufacture  and  im- 
port of  armour  were  forbidden  in  Wales,  and  all  Welsh 
meetings  were  unlawful,  except  by  special  license.  The 
vernacular  poet  Glyn  Cothi  complains  bitterly  that  his 
furniture  had  been  confiscated  on  his  presuming  to  marry 
an  Englishwoman  ;  had  he  been  English  and  his  wife 
Welsh,  he  would  have  forfeited  all  franchises  and  made 
himself  a  Welshman  in  the  eye  of  the  law.  Unlike  his 
father,  Henry  VIII.  thought  much  of  the  Principality  in 
the  latter  years  of  his  reign  ;  and  it  was  settled  by  various 
statutes  that  the  English  law  alone  should  be  current 
there,  that  instead  of  the  despotic  jurisdiction  of  the  Lords 
Marchers  justices  of  the  peace  should  be  estabhshed  and 
hold  sessions  in  each  county  twice  a  year,  that  Welsh- 
born  subjects  should  have  the  same  privileges  as  English- 
men, and  that  each  county  and  each  county  town  should 
send  a  member  to  P  arliament.  As  raids  into  England 
might  still  happen,  it  was  ordered  that  no  ferry-boat 
should  take  any  Welshman  acrose  the  Severn  by  night. 
And,  by  way  of  complement  to  this,  English  disorder  was 
repressed  by  the  vigour  of  Roland  Lee,  the  Warden  of  the 
Marches,  both  in  Cheshire,  which  had  long  presumed  on 
its  privileges  as  a  County  Palatine  not  subject  to  the  royal 
courts  by  sending  bands  out  to  plunder  neighbouring 
counties,  and  in  Shropshire  and  Herefordshire,  which 
used  their  position  on  the  border  for  the  same  purpose. 

When   Henry's  hand  was  refused  by  the  Duchess  of 
Milan,  Cromwell,  finding  the  Six  Articles  passed  in  spite 


214 


The  Early  Tudors. 


1539 


of  him,  devised  a  singularly  bold  plan  for  saving  Prot- 
estantism in  England  by  marrying  Henry  to  some  lady 

who  would  lead  him  in  that  direction.  Anne, 
withCkves*  sister  to  the  Duke  of  Cleves,  seemed  well 
CrorawelL         Suited  for  this  purpose;  for  the  Duke  was  a 

Protestant,  and  his  dominions,  which  in- 
cluded Juliers,  Berg,  and  part  of  Hanover,  placed  him  in 
the  closest  connection  with  the  Protestant  States  of  Hesse 
and  Saxony,  and  with  Hermann  Archbishop  of  Cologne, 


CLEVES,  MAEK,  BERG,  JFLIERS. 


who  was  already  showing  the  Protestant  tendencies  which 
led  to  his  deposition  in  1543.  He  was  therefore  a  most 
important  member  of  the  '  Smalkaldic  League '  against 
the  Emperor,  which  had  been  formed  in  1531,  and  had 
on  the  loth  of  July,  1536,  been  enlarged  and  renewed 
for  ten  years,  the  contingent  of  troops  which  each  of  its 
members  was  to  supply  being  also  arranged  against 
emergencies.     Moreover  he  had  claims   on  Gelderland, 


1540  The  Alliance  with   Cleves.  215 

which,  if  estabhshed,  would  make  his  territory  like  an 
open  gate  for  any  one  wishing  to  attack  the  Emperor 
either  in  Holland  or  Germany,  and  having  France  for  an 
ally.  Cromwell  therefore  threw  his  whole  force  into  the 
negotiation,  hoping  thus  to  checkmate  the  party  which 
had  carried  the  Six  Articles  and  which  wished  to  see 
Charles  invade  England.  On  the  27th  of  December, 
1539,  the  lady  landed  at  Deal;  on  the  31st  Henry  met  her 
at  Rochester  and  found  her  lamentably  unlike  Holbein's 
portrait,  quite  devoid  of  accomplishments,  knowing  no 
language  but  her  own,  and  much  marked  with  the  small- 
pox. His  consternation  was  extreme  ;  he  could  hardly 
utter  a  word,  and  forgot  to  take  from  his  pocket  the 
present  which  he  had  prepared.  Foreigners  in  those 
days  were  sometimes  half  surprised  and  more  than  half 
amused  at  our  caring  so  much  for  female  beauty ;  and 
Henry  was  as  English  in  this  point  as  his  father  had 
been.  Hardly  would  he  have  submitted  to  such  an 
infliction  even  for  a  cherished  purpose  of  his  own,  much 
less  for  one  with  which  he  only  half  sympathised.  Could 
not  a  pre-contract  be  made  out  ?  No,  the  lady  was  very 
decidedly  free;  and  after  all  it  would  not  do  to  throw 
the  Duke  into  the  alliance  between  Charles  and  Francis, 
which  was  now  assuming  the  most  threatening  appear- 
ance, Charles  being  actually  on  a  visit  to  the  French 
Court  and  ominously  refusing  all  enquiry  into  the  treat- 
ment of  Englishmen  in  Spain  by  the  Inquisition.  So  the 
marriage  took  place  on  the  6th  of  January,  1540,  hateful 
though  it  was  to  the  bridegroom,  and  unpopular  because 
of  the  risk  from  it  to  Flemish  trade.  For  the  next 
five  months  a  life-and-death  struggle  went  on  between 
the  two  religious  parties.  Cromwell  seemed  for  a  while 
to  be  scoring  at  all  points.  He  was  created  Earl  of 
Essex  on  the   17th  of  April,  and  afterwards  a  Knight  of 


2i6  The  Early   Tudors.  1540 

the  Garter,  and  succeeded  in  imprisoning  some  of  his 
antagonists  or  driving  them  from  the  Council.  It  was 
expected  every  day  that  Gardiner  would  be  sent  to  the 
Tower,  The  minister  also  carried  the  attainder  of  some 
priests,  once  of  Queen  Katherine's  household,  who  had 
been  '  contumacious  '  ever  since  ;  and  succeeded  in  check- 
ing the  action  of  the  Six  Articles,  and  in  abohshing 
many  rights  of  sanctuary.  But  all  the  time  his  main 
scheme  was  collapsing  miserably.  He  could  not  persuade 
Francis  to  join  the  league  of  Protestant  Germany,  and 
its  members  in  alarm  made  their  peace  with  Charles  for 
the  time.  This  was  the  opportunity  for  which  Cromwell's 
enemies  had  been  waiting ;  now  their  charges,  carefully 
gathered  for  years,  might  securely  be  hurled  at  him. 
On  the  loth  of  June  Henry  allowed  him  to  be  arrested  at 
the  Council-table,  the  other  members  loudly  proclaiming 
him  a  traitor  and  tearing  the  ribbon  of  the  Garter  from 
his  neck.  He  was  immediately  attainted  on  eight 
charges,  the  substance  of  which  was  that  he  had  planned 
to  crush  the  nobles  of  England,  and  to  form  a  con- 
federacy of  heretics  in  the  country  by  means  of  which 
he  might  raise  a  rebellion.  He  was  truly  or  falsely  sworn 
to  have  said  that,  if  the  King  and  realm  varied  from  his 
opinions,  he  would  fight  against  them  sword  in  hand, 
and  that,  if  he  lived  a  year  or  two,  he  would  bring 
matters  to  such  a  state,  that  the  King  would  have  no 
power  to  change  it  even  if  he  desired.  Events  then 
rushed  on  with  lightning  speed.  The  attainder  was  passed 
by  acclamation  about  the  iqth  of  June;  on  the  ist  of  July 
Norfolk  and  the  new  government  carried  a  Bill  for  the 
better  observance  of  the  Six  Articles  ;  on  the  7th  the 
King's  late  marriage  was  brought  before  Convocation 
and  annulled  on  the  wonderful  plea  that  it  had  been  '  ex- 
torted under  compulsion   by  external    causes ;  '  on    the 


1540  Fall  of  Cromwell.  217 

1 2th  an  Act  of  Parliament  was  carried  to  the  same  effect, 
and  Anne  of  Cleves,  intending  to  remain  in  England, 
was  endowed  with  3,000/.  a  year  and  the  grotesque  title 
of  the  '  King's  Sister.'  On  the  28th  Cromwell  laid  his 
head  on  the  block,  and  two  days  later  Barnes,  Garrett, 
and  Jerome,  who  had  rashly  put  themselves  forward  as 
opponents  of  Gardiner,  were  sent  to  the  stake  as  gain- 
sayers  of  the  Six  Articles ;  the  priests  attainted  by 
Cromwell  being  hanged  at  the  same  place  and  time  for 
denying  the  Supremacy.  Soon  after  this,  Parliament, 
which  had  in  the  previous  year  given  to  Henry's  procla- 
mations the  force  of  laws  (thus  going  near  to  establish  a 
kind  of  Turkish  despotism  in  the  State),  did  nearly  the 
same  in  Church  matters  by  enabling  a  committee  of  the 
Archbishops,  Bishops,  and  certain  doctors  of  divinity 
acting  with  the  King's  sanction  (that  is,  the  King  himself) 
to  declare  absolutely  the  judgment  of  the  Enghsh  Church 
on  all  questions  of  theology,  whether  raised  here  or  on 
the  Continent,  and  to  enforce  it  by  pains  and  penalties. 

In  April  of  this  year,  James  V.  of  Scotland,  on  his  way 
back  from  France,  stopped  for  a  short  time  off  Scar- 
borough and  boldly  received  a  deputation  of 
Yorkshire  gentlemen  asking  for  the  help  formation  in 
against  Henry  which  he  was  well  disposed  to 
grant.  After  1524  he  had  soon  begun  drifting  back 
towards  the  French  alliance.  True  the  negotiations  for 
his  marriage  with  Mary  were  more  than  once  renewed, 
but  neither  side  would  take  the  first  step — the  Scottish 
statesmen  declaring  that  a  lasting  peace  would  be  easy 
after  the  marriage,  and  Henry  wishing  for  a  reliable 
treaty  before  it.  Till  Margaret's  divorce  from  Angus 
was  granted  in  1528,  and  she  was  allowed  to  marry 
a  new  favourite,  Lord  Methuen,  she  had  been  quite 
resolved  '  to  seek  for  help  wherever  she  could  find  it ; ' 


2i8  77/1?  Early   Tudor s.  1540 

and  as  none  came  from  Henry,  this  meant  that  she 
would  appeal  to  France.  Therefore  two  political  parties 
became  clearly  defined;  that  of  Lords  Angus,  Lennox, 
Murray,  Glencairn,  and  Sir  George  Douglas,  who  were 
prepared  to  go  all  lengths  for  the  English  connection, 
being  opposed  to  Methuen,  Arran,  and  James  and  David 
Beton,  successive  Archbishops  of  St.  Andrew's,  who 
were  in  the  French  interest.  From  1528  forward  the 
beginnings  of  the  Reformation  in  England  made  the 
Scots  anti-reformers,  inclined  to  ally  themselves  with  our 
enemies  still  more  closely,  and  to  mark  their  religious 
zeal  by  persecution.  Thus  Patrick  Hamilton,  the  proto- 
martyr  of  the  Scottish  Reformation,  was  burned  in  that 
year  '  for  denying  pilgrimage,  purgatory,  prayer  to  the 
saints,  and  such  trifles,'  says  Knox  ;  and  for  some  time 
there  was  an  exodus  from  Scotland  of  gentlemen  and 
clerks  escaping  with  their  lives  from  charges  of  reading 
the  Bible  in  English,  and  asking  Lord  Dacre  for  relief 
when  they  were  across  the  Border.  James,  as  time  went 
on,  was  heard  to  boast  that  he  was  to  be  made  Duke  of 
York,  not  by  his  uncle,  but  by  the  Emperor;  and  when 
Henry  went  to  York  to  have  an  interview  with  him,  the 
rash  young  man  was  induced  by  the  bribes  of  the  Church 
party  to  break  his  engagement,  thus  giving  up  the  chance 
of  seeing  how  widely  different  from  his  own  kingdom 
was  that  which  might  fall  to  him  as  Henry's  son-in-law, 
and  which  his  grandson  was  at  length  to  inherit.  As  the 
Catholic  partisans  were  quite  determined  to  stop  the 
English  negotiations  altogether,  they  also  induced  James 
to  marry  Magdalen,  the  beautiful,  but  delicate  daughter 
of  Francis  L,  who  died  within  a  few  months  from  the 
change  of  climate.  It  was  in  bringing  home  his  bride 
that  he  received  the  Scarborough  deputation,  and  heard 
how  they  were  '  robbed  and  murdered '  and  how  much  they 


1542  Solway  Moss.  2ig 

longed  for  him  to  come  and  '  have  all. '  On  arriving  at 
Leith  he  bade  farther  defiance  to  England  by  prosecuting 
some  of  Angus's  relations  and  supporters  ;  his  sister,  Lady 
Glamis,  a  woman  of  great  beauty  and  intelligence,  was 
burned  alive  for  treason,  as  Lady  Bulmer  had  been  in 
England.  After  Magdalen's  death,  Henry  renewed  his 
advances  ;  but  found  James  fatally  resolved  on  a  second 
French  wife,  Mary  of  Guise,  the  widow  of  the  Due  de 
Longueville,  whom  he  married  in  June  1538.  Henry 
meanwhile  was  preparing  two  deadly  blows  against  his 
recreant  nephew.  The  first  of  these  was  an  attempt  to 
get  him  kidnapped  while  hunting  on  the  Border.  A 
paper  still  remains  in  which  the  English  Council  remark 
that  they  find  in  the  scheme  '  many  difficulties,  above  all 
the  risk  of  a  struggle  in  which  James  might  be  killed, 
and  the  infamy  thence  arising.'  They  admit  that  the 
proposer,  Sir  Robert  Wharton,  an  English  commander 
on  the  Border,  may  have  had  a  'good  meaning'  in  pro- 
posing it,  but  think  that  he  ought  to  be  strictly  charged 
to  carry  it  no  farther,  and  not  to  communicate  it  to  any 
living  creature.  The  second  scheme  bore  a  still  more 
threatening  aspect;  for  Henry  ordered  that  search  should 
be  made  by  Lee,  the  Archbishop  of  York,  for  all  ancient 
records  of  hgmage  paid  by  Scotland  to  England,  mani- 
festly intending  to  take  up  this  old  quarrel  where  Edward 
II.  had  been  compelled  to  leave  it.  He  also  allowed  his 
Parliament  in  an  address  to  him  to  call  James  an  '  usurper 
of  the  kingdom  which  rightly  belonged  to  his  Majesty.' 
Thus  the  two  parties  were  bent  on  a  war      „  , 

'^  Solway 

which  might  have  wrecked  the  fortunes  of      Mo^^s, 
both  countries.  Fortunately  neither  possessed      james  v. 
organising  power  sufficient  for  a  great  enter-      ^t'uITion. 
prise ;    and  though  each  side  was  well    in- 
clined to  push  on  with  reckless  haste,  material  of  war  was 


220  The  Early  Tudors.  1542 

almost  entirely  wanting.  The  Duke  of  Norfolk  was  ordered 
to  advance  with  30,000  men  by  Berwick  to  the  Lothians, 
but  provisions  soon  failed  him,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
disband  his  troops  for  fear  of  starvation  On  this  James 
vindictively  insisted  on  crossing  the  Eske  and  ravaging 
Cumberland  ;  but  the  nobles  told  him  that  they  had  done 
their  feudal  duty  in  defending  Scotland,  and  had  no  idea 
of  going  any  farther.  Maddened  at  their  refusal,  he  de- 
clared that  they  were  all  traitors,  and  not  obscurely 
hinted  that  he  should  sweep  off  a  hundred  of  them  by 
proscription.  Meanwhile  he  called  for  volunteers,  who 
were  to  meet  at  Lochmaben  and  receive  their  orders 
there  ;  and  about  10,000  men  obeyed  the  summons.  It 
was  only  when  they  were  already  in  England  that  they 
found  they  were  to  be  commanded,  not  by  the  King  in 
person,  but  by  Oliver  Sinclair,  a  most  unpopular  Court- 
favourite.  This  produced  a  commotion  in  the  army,  in 
the  midst  of  which  they  were  suddenly  charged  by  a  few 
hundreds  of  English  Border  horsemen.  Imagining  that 
Norfolk  was  upon  them,  they  actually  turned  and  fled 
homewards  ;  but,  missing  the  way,  most  of  them  reached 
the  Solway  when  the  tide  was  up,  and  were  either 
drowned  in  attempting  to  cross  it  or  taken  prisoners  on 
the  English  side.  The  King  had  remained  at  Caerlave- 
rock  Castle  during  the  expedition ;  he  now  returned  in 
the  deepest  dejection  to  Falkland,  with  bad  news  dogging 
him  at  every  step  and  his  health  daily  drooping  more  and 
more.  His  two  infant  sons  had  both  died  shortly  before, 
and  Mary  of  Guise  was  expecting  her  third  confinement 
at  Edinburgh.  On  the  7th  of  December,  1 542,  the  news 
came  of  the  birth  of  another  Mary,  so  soon  to  be  known 
by  the  fated  name  '  Queen  of  Scots.'  '  It  came  with  a  lass 
and  it  will  go  with  a  lass,'  said  the  hapless  father,  in  allu- 
sion to  the  throne  coming  to  the  Stewarts  by  a  daughter 


1543  Solway  Moss.  221 

of  Bruce  ;  and  a  week  latter  he  died,  leaving  the  govern- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  Earl  of  Arran,  the  head  of  the 
Hamiltons,  who  claimed  it  because  of  his  father's  mar- 
riage with  James  Ill.'s  sister,  which  made  him  next  of  kin 
to  the  infant  Queen.  The  new  Regent  at  once  imprisoned 
the  leaders  of  the  French  party,  and  wrote  to  Henry  a 
letter  of  appeal,  asking  indulgence  for  the  baby  kins- 
woman who,  by  a  calamity  which  seemed  to  bring  back 
the  days  of  Flodden,  was  now  the  hope  of  her  country. 
Henry  replied  by  offering  to  marry  his  son  to  the  infant, 
and  strongly  endeavouring  to  win  over  the  prisoners 
of  Solway  Moss  to  his  plan,  which  was  that  Mary  should 
at  once  be  sent  to  England  for  education,  that  Edinburgh, 
Stirling,  and  Dumbarton  should  receive  English  garri- 
sons, and  that  Cardinal  Beton,  the  great  enemy  of  Eng- 
land, should  be  transferred  to  an  English  prison.  The 
Scots  on  their  part  were  willing  to  accept  of  the  marriage, 
but  only  on  the  absurd  condition  that,  if  ever  the  two 
crowns  were  on  one  head,  an  independent  Regency  of 
Scotland  should  for  the  time  belong  of  right  to  the  Arran 
family.  Henry's  other  conditions  would,  they  declared, 
be  resisted  by  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  Scotland. 
After  much  uncertainty,  a  treaty  was  at  last  signed  at 
Greenwich  (July  i,  1543)  providing  for  an  alliance  be- 
tween the  countries  during  the  life  of  the  two  sovereigns, 
and  one  year  more  ;  the  Queen  was  now  to  be  allowed  to 
stay  with  her  mother  till  the  age  of  ten.  In  case  the 
crowns  were  united,  the  liberties  of  Scotland  were  fully 
guaranteed  ;  if  the  infant  Mary  ever  became  a  childless 
widow,  she  was  to  resume  possession  of  her  kingdom  in 
peace.  The  settlement  seemed  hopeful,  yet  the  bond 
was  torn  up  almost  before  it  was  drawn  by  the  audacity 
of  Cardinal  Beton,  who  carried  off  Mary  from  Linlithgow 
to  Stirling  Castle,  where  she  was  in  the  power  of  his  parti- 


222  The  Early  Tudors.  1537- 

sans  ;  and  on  this  even  An-an  himself,  unable  any  longer  to 
stem  the  torrent  of  popular  longing  for  independence, 
joined  the  Romish  party,  cancelled  the  Greenwich  treaty, 
withdrew  a  recently  granted  permission  to  read  the  Bible, 
and  announced  that  heretics  would  be  prosecuted  accord- 
ing to  Church  law.  Though  the  murder  of  Beton  in  1546 
at  St.  Andrews  (to  which  Henry,  as  Mr.  Burton  has  fully 
shown,  was  accessory  before  the  fact)  seemed  likely  to 
help  towards  union  with  England,  yet  it  had  the  opposite 
effect ;  for  in  the  year  after  the  Cardinal's  death  many  of  the 
most  vigorous  spirits  of  the  English  party  (including  John 
Knox),  after  holding  St.  Andrews  for  a  time,  were  cap- 
tured by  a  French  army  and  sent  as  prisoners  to  France, 
leaving  no  one  who  could  supply  their  place.  It  was  little 
comfort  that  an  English  force  under  Lords  Lisle  and 
Hertford  captured  and  burned  Leith  and  Edinburgh  in 
the  following  year,  besides  wasting  Fifeshire,  which  sel- 
dom suffered  in  such  wars.  The  burning  of  243  villages 
and  192  towns  was  not  the  way  to  produce  kinder  feehngs 
in  Scotland,  or  make  the  people  more  content  to  accept 
real  union. 

Ireland  had  also  had  its  own  disorders  after  the  death  of 
Lord  Thomas  Fitzgerald  in  1537.      Lord  Leonard  Grey, 
his  captor,  was  ordered  to  put  down  resist- 
Leonard  ^^^e  to  English  authority  in  the  West.     To 

Ireland  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^  bravely  addressed  himself,  storm- 

ing various  castles  on  the  Shannon,  and, 
above  all,  capturing  '  Brene's  Bridge  '  over  that  river  near 
Limerick,  which  was  so  strongly  fortified  with  marble  works 
that  artillery  could  make  no  impression  on  it,  while  the 
ramparts  themselves  could  be  approached  only  across 
two  broken  arches  which  had  to  be  spanned  with  scaling- 
ladders.  But  the  tide  of  victory  was  almost  immediately 
checked  by  want  of  money ;  and  it  was  too  clear  that  the 


-1542  Irish  Affairs.  223 

Irish  government  was  farther  than  ever  from  the  chance 
of  paying  its  own  way.  Stung  by  this  disappointment. 
Lord  Leonard  was  thenceforward  at  constant  variance 
with  his  Council,  whom  he  treated  most  harshly  and 
overbearingly ;  while  on  service  he  disgusted  his  best 
officers  by  requiring  the  impossible  and  disgracing  them 
if  they  refused  to  attempt  it.  The  Dublin  Parliament  now 
ventured  on  throwing  out  a  Bill  for  the  dissolution  of  the 
Irish  monasteries ;  and  enmity  to  England  daily  produced 
the  same  effects  as  in  Scotland,  making  the  people  more 
and  more  ardent  partisans  of  Rome.  At  this  juncture 
Cromwell's  fall  began  to  be  expected  ;  and  Grey,  who 
was  intimate  with  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  thought  that  he 
might  further  a  reaction  in  Ireland,  such  as  his  leader 
was  accomplishing  at  home.  He  therefore  favoured  the 
bishops  most  opposed  to  the  Reformation,  and  went  so 
far  as  to  entrust  many  important  charges  to  the  ever- 
rebellious  Fitzgerald  family — with  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  was  connected  by  marriage — and  to  maintain  a 
bishop  made  by  the  Pope,  whose  appointment  he  was 
expressly  ordered  to  disallow.  All  this,  too,  was  during 
the  perilous  times  when  the  fear  of  the  Emperor's  in- 
vading Ireland  was  not  yet  at  an  end.  He  then  made  a 
progress  through  the  rebellious  districts,  and  reported  to 
Henry  that  his  reception  had  been  most  excellent.  But 
even  he  himself  soon  discovered  that  he  had  been  de- 
ceived ;  his  new  friends  were  manifestly  conspiring  to 
promote  the  foreign  invasion,  and  in  October,  1 539,  he  had 
to  attack  and  defeat  the  rebellious  chiefs  on  the  borders 
of  Ulster.  After  this  he  reconciled  himself  with  Ormond 
and  the  loyalist  nobles  whom  he  had  offended,  and  asked 
for  a  few  weeks'  leave  of  absence  from  his  government. 
This  was  allowed,  but  his  loctim  tctiens.  Sir  W.  Brereton, 
soon  informed  Henry  of   new  insurrections,  the   direct 


224  The  Early  Tudor s.  1 540-1 

effects  of  Grey's  wrongheadedness.  The  King  sent  the 
Deputy  to  the  Tower,  and  ordered  the  chief  members  of 
the  Irish  Council  to  come  over  and  give  their  evidence 
against  him.  It  was  sworn  that  Grey  had  abused  those  who 
spoke  ill  of  Cardinal  Pole,  that  he  had  taken  bribes  from 
Irish  chiefs,  had  connived  at  their  attacks  on  the  more 
loyal,  and  had  released  from  prison,  untried,  men  who 
had  been  committed  for  treason.  Above  all  the  incredi- 
ble charge  was  hinted,  though  not  expressly  made  against 
him,  that  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  "West  some  of  the 
King's  guns,  with  the  intention  that  they  should  be  found 
and  used  by  the  invaders.  In  hope  of  mercy.  Grey 
pleaded  guilty  to  his  actual  indictment,  and  was  executed 
on  the  28th  of  June,  1 540.  St.  Leger,  his  successor  in 
office,  carried  out  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  and 
by  judicious  distribution  of  the  spoils  managed  to  procure 
for  the  home-government  a  certain  respite  from  Irish 
troubles. 

The  King  within  a  few  days  of  his  release  from  Anne 
of  Cleves  married  Katherine  Howard,  another  niece  of 
Katherine  ^^  Duke  of  Norfolk,  a  fascinating  girl  of 
DMth'of  nineteen,    for    whose    perfections     he    was 

LadySalis-  strongly  incHned  to  have  a  special  service 
of  thanksgiving  drawn  up.  The  poor  crea- 
ture had,  however,  young  as  she  was,  dishonoured  herself 
before  marriage,  and  now  felt  obliged,  as  Queen,  to  give 
appointments  about  her  person  by  way  of  hush-money 
to  the  very  men  who  ought  to  have  kept  farthest  from 
her.  All  her  terrible  secrets  soon  came  out ;  and  to 
Cranmer  was  entrusted  the  commission  of  telling  Henry 
how  he  had  been  deceived.  The  only  chance  of  life  which 
remained  to  Katherine  was  that  she  should  make  the 
common  '  pre-contract '  excuse  ;  but,  with  a  truthfulness 
which  went  far  to  redeem  her  errors,  she  refused  to  make 


1 541  Henry's  Last  French  War.  225 

any  such  statement,  and  was  attainted  in  Parliament  for 
high  treason,  and  beheaded  on  the  12th  of  February,  1 542  ; 
with  her  suffered  Lady  Rochford,  who  had  before  done 
much  to  ruin  her  sister-in-law  Anne  Boleyn.  On  the 
27th  of  May  in  the  preceding  year  the  noble  old  Countess 
of  Salisbury,  almost  the  only  remaining  Plantagenet,  was 
accused  for  continuing,  or  being  supposed  to  continue,  a 
treasonable  correspondence  with  her  son  Cardinal  Pole. 
She  loudly  asserted  her  innocence  on  the  scaffold,  refusing 
to  kneel  at  the  block,  and  telling  the  executioner  that  he 
might  get  her  head  as  he  could — a  proceeding  which  was 
considered  strangely  presumptuous  and  undutiful.  Some- 
what more  to  Henry's  credit  was  the  execution  of  Lord 
Dacre  of  the  South,  with  three  companions,  for  having 
caused  the  death  of  a  gamekeeper  while  engaged,  by  way 
of  a  frolic,  in  shooting  deer  in  a  neighbour's  park  without 
leave  asked.  Thus  sternly  was  the  principle  vindicated 
that  homicide  is  murder  if  done  in  the  course  of  an 
action  otherwise  illegal ;  yet  true  equity  would  have 
inflicted  death  only  on  the  person  who  actually  struck  the 
fatal  blow. 


CHAPTER  XVL 


henry's   last    FRENCH   WAR.      CLOSE   AND   RESULTS 

OF   THE  REIGN. 

154I. 

Seldom  has  royal   ambition   exposed    Europe  to   such 
deadly  peril  and  suffering  as  when  in  the  latter  part  of 
Francis  L's  reign  he  joined  with  the  Turks.      rhiriesV 
Even  at  the  moment  when  he  gave  up  his      fails  at 
sword  at   Pavia,  he    ordered  a  servant  in-         ^"^' 
stantly  to  take  his  ring  to  the  Sultan  as  an  appeal  for 
p 


226  The  Early  Tudors.  1543 

help.  And  in  the  times  which  followed  his  liberation 
from  captivity  he  constantly  used  the  Turkish  alliance 
for  the  purposes  of  his  ambition,  inducing  Sultan  Soliman 
to  attack  Austria  and  Hungary  and  to  send  his  corsairs 
to  all  the  seaboard  of  the  Empire,  while  he  himself,  with  a 
child's  pertinacity,  tried  once  more  for  Milan.  Charles  V., 
on  the  contrary,  though  his  difficulties  both  from  France 
and  from  the  Protestant  States  of  Germany  were  immense, 
still  carried  on  a  determined  war  against  the  Porte.  He 
had  always  intended  to  make  his  conquest  of  Tunis  in 
1535  the  stepping-stone  to  Algiers,  which  was  a  more  im- 
portant focus  of  piracy,  and  nearer  his  Spanish  dominions. 
To  carry  out  this  plan,  he  sent  thither  a  magnificent  fleet 
and  army  in  October,  1541,  in  spite  of  all  warning  that  it 
was  too  late  in  the  year  for  such  an  expedition.  The 
result  was  that  a  storm  came  on  before  the  troops  could 
land  their  material,  and  half  the  ships  and  men  were 
miserably  lost.  Francis,  overjoyed  at  his  rival's  defeat, 
forthwith  arranged  attacks  upon  him  from  Constantinople 
and  Venice  on  the  one  side,  and  from  Denmark,  Sweden, 
and  the  German  Protestant  League  on  the  other.  The 
scheme  was  detestable  on  many  grounds ;  for  it  gave  a 
fresh  spur  to  Soliman,  who  had  in  the  previous  July 
overthrown  the  combined  forces  of  Austria  and  Hungary 
and  occupied  the  latter  country  ;  besides  which  Francis 
was  fully  purposed  to  atone  for  his  alliance  with  Mo- 
hammedans and  Protestants  abroad  by  the  most  horrid 
of  religious  persecutions  at  home.  His  military  plan 
was  that  in  the  summer  of  1 543  the  Turkish  fleets  should 
ravage  all  Charles's  Italian  seaboard,  while  he  himself 
should  invade  the  Emperor's  dominions  by  the  open  gates 
of  Gelderland  and  Cleves. 

But  by  this  time  Henry,  vexed  indeed  at  some  French 
backslidings  in  money  matters  and  at  their  support  of  his 


1543  Henry's  Last  French  War.  227 

enemies  in  Scotland,  but  also  acting  at  last  upon  reasons 
of  sound  European  policy,  had  agreed  with  ^^   .  .^^ 

the  Emperor  that  Francis  must  be  compelled  Charles 
to  break  his  present  alliance  with  the  FVandsand 
Turks  and  to  repay  to  Charles  and  the  the  Turks. 
Diet  the  money  spent  by  them  on  the  earher  Turkish 
wars  which  he  had  occasioned.  The  first-fruits  of  this 
combination  were  the  rejection,  already  related,  of  the 
Greenwich  Treaty  by  the  French  party  in  Scotland, 
and  the  final  breaking  down  of  the  scheme  of  union, 
The  war  began  at  once  ;  and  Charles,  with  Gardiner 
attending  him  as  English  commissioner,  stormed  the 
city  of  Duren,  massacred  its  inhabitants,  and  forced  the 
Duke  of  Cleves  to  beg  for  mercy.  About  10,000  Eng- 
lishmen joined  their  great  ally  at  the  siege  of  Landr6cies, 
which  had  been  taken  and  fortified  as  a  place  of  arms  by 
the  French  earlier  in  the  year.  The  politic  Charles 
expressed  the  utmost  admiration  for  his  confederates, 
declaring  that  he  would  live  and  die  with  them,  and  they 
should  be  his  guards.  While  the  siege  went  on,  the 
French  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean  was  actually  co- 
operating with  the  Algerine  pirate  Barbarossa  in  an 
attack  on  Nice,  the  last  possession  which  Francis  had 
left  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  This  alliance,  however,  was 
ultimately  fatal  to  Francis's  plans ;  for  it  excited  such 
horror  in  Germany  that  Charles  was  able  at  the  Diet  of 
Spires  to  proclaim  war  anew  in  the  name  of  the  whole 
Empire  against  the  two  enemies  of  Christendom,  whose 
fleets,  he  said,  were  at  that  moment  riding  side  by  side 
in  a  Proven<;al  harbour.  The  Diet  voted  24,000  men 
and  an  universal  poll-tax.  Henry  on  his  part  persisted 
in  the  war  in  order  to  weaken  French  influence  on 
Scotland.     He  had  now  reinforced  his  army  up  to  30,000 


228  The  Early  Tiidors.  1543 

men,  and  had  also  25,000  Germans  under  his  command. 
With  these  he  agreed  to  march  on  Paris  from  the  north, 
while  the  Emperor  reached  it  by  the  valley  of  the  Marne. 
Fortunately  for  France  this  scheme  was  not  carried  out. 
Henry,  whose  many  wars  had  taught  him  little  general- 
ship, stopped  to  besiege  Boulogne,  which  held  out  till  Sep- 
tember 14,  and  thus  by  its  steadiness  made  Henry  miss 
the  rendezvous.  Finding  that  he  could  not  make  head 
alone  against  the  French,  Charles  fell  back  on  Soissons, 
and,  breaking  his  engagement  not  to  make  a  separate 
peace,  signed  the  treaty  of  Crepy,  by  which  Francis 
agreed  to  abandon  the  Turks,  to  help  in  the  recovery  of 
Hungary  from  them,  and  to  join  Charles  in  his  suspended 
struggle  with  Protestantism.  The  Emperor  wanted,  in 
fact,  one  thing  above  all  others,  the  defeat  and  dispersion 
of  the  Smalkaldic  League,  which  had  become  much 
stronger  and  more  dangerous  by  the  accession  of  Den- 
mark. Indeed  he  was  not  wrong  in  supposing  that 
events  were  now  deciding  the  future  of  religion  in 
Europe.  Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  hope  that  the 
Protestants  might  rejoin  Rome,  and  in  1541  the  most 
evangelical  members  of  the  Papal  Church  had  held  a 
conference  at  Ratisbon  to  bring  this  about.  But  it  had 
failed,  ^and  its  Italian  members  had  either  decided  to 
become  Protestants  or  contented  themselves  with  ad- 
hering to  Catholicism  as  it  was.  As  this  kind  of  con- 
ciliation had  become  impossible,  Pope  Paul  III.  resolved 
to  reform  the  Church  of  Rome  on  her  own  principles, 
and  with  Jesuitism  and  the  Inquisition  for  her  mainstays. 
For  this  purpose  he  gave  notice  that  the  first  session  of 
the  long-expected  Council  would  be  held  on  March  15, 
1 545,  at  Trent  in  the  Tyrol.  To  this  the  Protestants  were 
not  to  be  admitted,  even  if  they  still  desired  it ;  indeed 
one  of  the  first  resolutions  of  the  Council  was  for  the 


1545  Henry  s  Last  French  War.  229 

sterner  war  against  them  which    led  to  their   defeat  at 
Miihlberg  in  1 547. 

Francis  on  his  side  was  equally  determined  to  put 
down  heresy  in  his  own  dominions  ;  indeed,  as  soon  as 
the  peace  of  Crepy  made  Protestant  allies 
needless,  he  seized  the  opportunity  to  murder  attack  on 
3,000  inoffensive  Vaudois.  But  he  was  quite  ctsmout  . 
equally  anxious  to  revenge  himself  for  the  fright  which 
England  had  given  him  by  the  invasion  of  France  ; 
therefore,  collecting  in  Normandy  a  fleet  of  235  vessels 
of  all  sizes,  he  directed  part  of  them  to  convey  a  force  to 
Scotland,  and  the  rest  to  make  a  descent  at  the  nearest 
point  of  England,  while  his  land  army  blockaded  the 
Castle  of  Boulogne.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Armada  long 
afterwards,  an  untoward  accident  marked  the  starting; 
for  the  King's  cooks  set  fire  by  carelessness  to  the  largest 
vessel  of  the  fleet,  on  board  which  he  was  giving  an  enter- 
taiment.  On  the  i8th  of  July,  1545,  the  ships  were  off  the 
Isle  of  Wight.  Our  fleet,  of  only  sixty  ships,  being  not 
strong  enough  to  defend  the  Solent,  ran  for  the  shelter  of 
the  batteries,  and  a  calm  ensuing,  was  in  great  danger  from 
the  enemy's  galleys,  which  could  fire  at  the  ships  without 
suffering  in  return,  as  their  oars  enabled  them  to  move 
about  quickly  and  thus  baffle  the  English  aim.  Pres- 
ently a  breeze  sprang  up,  and  we  advanced  again  ;  but 
one  large  vessel,  the  '  Mary  Rose,'  was  either  sunk,  as 
French  accounts  will  have  it,  by  their  fire,  or,  according 
to  our  own,  lost — as  the  '  Eurydice '  was  in  our  own 
memory — by  heeling  over  too  far,  so  that  the  sea  came 
through  her  lower-deck  ports.  Annebaut,  the  French 
admiral,  then  proposed  to  run  up  and  bombard  Ports- 
mouth ;  but  the  pilots  declared  it  impossible  either  to 
carry  the  fleet  through  the  obstacles,  or,  if  this  were 
done,  to  anchor  in  such  a  tideway.     He   then  landed 


230  The  Early  Tudors.  1545 

several  bodies  of  men  on  the  Isle  of  Wight,  with  the  in- 
tention of  holding  and  fortifying  several  points  in  it ;  but 
the  Act  of  1487  had  long  ago  restored  its  population,  and 
the  militia  under  Sir  Edward  Bellingham  were  able  to 
frustrate  all  such  attempts.  Finding  he  could  make  no 
impression,  Annebaut  then  ran  over  to  France,  dis- 
charged most  of  his  land  forces,  and,  returning  to  the 
English  coast,  made  a  descent  at  Seaford,  which  the 
Sussex  militia  dealt  with,  and  seemed  on  the  point  of 
fighting  with  Lords  Lisle  and  Surrey  off  Shoreham.  But 
the  hot  August  weather  spoiled  his  provisions  and  bred 
disease  in  his  still  crowded  vessels;  his  chance  was 
over,  and  he  was  obliged  to  retreat  to  Havre.  Though 
the  French  pressed  with  all  vigour  the  siege  of  Boulogne, 
or  rather  of  the  old  citadel  on  the  heights  whose  pic- 
turesque ramparts  still  remain,  yet  Sir  Edward  Poynings 
held  out  for  the  whole  winter  of  1545,  with  typhus 
ravaging  both  armies,  and  in  the  next  June  Henry  agreed 
to  surrender  the  place  in  eight  years  for  a  ransom 
of  5,000,000  francs.  In  the  treaty  of  peace  Scotland  was 
included,  so  that  French  influence  still  remained  supreme 
there. 

Next   came,    as   usual,   the    difficulty   of    finding  the 
million  and  a  half  which  the  war  had  cost.     A  Benevo- 
lence had  been  raised  for  it  in  1 545 — it  was 
rencyde'-  then  that  Alderman  Rock,  on  refusing  his 

^^^  ■  quota,  was  ordered  off  for  service  as  a  private 

soldier  on  the  Scottish  Border.  This  had  produced  about 
60,000/.,  and  the  remains  of  a  subsidy  were  still  avail- 
able ;  the  balance  was  now  provided  by  a  debasement  of 
the  currency — of  all  modes  of  taxation  the  one  which 
creates  most  distress,  by  throwing  all  contracts  into  dis- 
order, reducing  the  value  of  fixed  wages  and  incomes,  and 
making  recovery  impossible  by  driving  good  money  out 


15+6  Henry  s  Last  French  War.  231 

of  circulation.  Yet  Henry  by  a  succession  of  tamperings 
reduced  the  quantity  of  silver  in  an  ounce  of  coin  first 
to  half  an  ounce,  and  later  to  six  pennyweights  nearly — 
the  regular  quantity  being  rather  more  than  eighteen 
pennyweights.  The  evil  therefore  was  a  growing  one ; 
nor  was  it  remedied  till  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth,  when 
the  coinage  was  at  length  restored  by  the  means  so 
graphically  described  by  Mr.  Froude. 

Peace  was  concluded  with  France  on  the  Sth  of  June, 
1546  ;  a  trifling  quarrel  had  all  but  plunged  us  meantime 
into  a  war  with  the  Emperor.  For  an  English  captain, 
when  ill-treated  and  robbed  by  the  Inquisition  in  Spain, 
had  retaliated  on  the  first  Spanish  vessel  which  he  met 
at  sea.  Henry  refused  to  surrender  the  man,  as  he  had 
been  wronged  first ;  therefore  Charles  put  an  embargo  on 
English  vessels  in  his  ports,  and  we  in  turn  seized  two 
Spanish  treasure-ships  in  the  Channel.  Fortunately 
wiser  counsels  at  last  prevailed,  and  no  war  followed. 

Before  the  end  of  the  French  conflict  Lord  Surrey 
had  been  deeply  vexed  at  finding  himself  superseded  in 
the  command  by  Lord  Hertford;  and,  the  g^g^utjon 
King's  death  being  shortly  expected,  he  seems  of  Lord 
to  have  made  known  without  the  least  caution 
his  views  on  the  situation.  '  In  case  of  God  taking  his 
Majesty  to  himself,'  the  proper  guardian  for  the  young 
Prince  Edward  would,  he  declared,  be  his  father,  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk.  Others  bore  witness  that  he  had  said 
— not  indeed  to  them,  but  to  others — that  when  the  King 
died  he,  Surrey,  would  deal  sharply  with  the  low-born 
Privy  Councillors.  Another  charge  was,  considering  the 
ideas  of  the  time,  a  very  serious  one  indeed.  The 
Duchess,  Surrey's  mother,  was  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Duke  of  Buckingham;  hence,  as  we  have  seen,  Surrey 
could  claim  royal  descent,  and  he  had  some  time  before 


232  The  Early  Tudors.  1546 

applied  to  the  Heralds'  College  to  be  allowed  to  quarter 
the  royal  arms  on  the  first  instead  of  the  second  division 
of  his  shield,  which  only  the  family  of  the  reigning 
king  were  entitled  to  do.  It  must  be  recollected  that 
Henry  had  in  1 528  ordered  a  heraldic  visitation  of  the 
country  which  was  to  be  repeated  every  thirty  years; 
and  such  an  assumption  as  Surrey's  was  an  offence  which 
had  been  severely  dealt  with  in  the  case  of  Edward 
Hastings,  who  was  imprisoned  for  sixteen  years  for  not 
submitting  his  coat  to  the  judgment  of  a  Court  Military. 
Moreover  the  precise  alteration  made  by  Surrey  had  both 
precedent  and  explanation  in  the  case  of  Edward  III., 
who  symbolised  his  claim  to  the  throne  of  France  by 
transferring  the  lilies  from  the  second  to  the  first  quarter 
of  his  shield.  No  doubt,  therefore,  such  a  change  was 
constructively  treasonable ;  and  the  notion  of  degrees  in 
treason  or  of  any  punishment  for  it  short  of  death  never 
seems  to  have  found  its  way  into  the  absolute  logic  of 
Henry's  mind.  Another  charge  against  Lord  Surrey  was 
that  he  '  delighted  to  converse  with  foreigners  and  con- 
form his  behaviour  to  theirs ' — an  unkindly  one,  surely,  to 
bring  against  the  poet  who  had  done  so  much  to  infuse 
Italian  grace  into  the  rugged  forms  of  English  poetry. 
His  own  sister,  the  widowed  Duchess  of  Richmond, 
contributed  to  his  ruin  by  confessing,  when  questioned 
by  the  Council,  that  Surrey  had  urged  her  to  use  her 
personal  attractions  to  captivate  her  father-in-law ;  but 
Henry's  state  of  health  since  Richmond's  death  in  1536 
suggests  that  there  must  have  been  some  misunder- 
standing here.  On  these  charges  (or  some  of  them) 
Surrey  was  tried  at  the  Guildhall,  condemned,  and  exe- 
cuted ;  the  Duke,  his  father,  was  attainted  in  Parliament, 
and  saved  only  by  Henry's  death  a  few  hours  before  the 
time  appointed  for  him  to  go  the  way  of  More  and  Crom- 


1546  Last  Persecutions.  233 

well.  Considering  that  the  evidence  in  these  cases  was 
chiefly  hearsay,  we  may  hope  that  they  tended  to  produce 
the  Act  which  immediately  afterwards  made  it  capital  to 
bring  anonymous  charges  of  treason  without  afterwards 
coming  forward  to  prove  them. 

Of  the  second  persecution  under  the  Six  Articles  the 
date  is  unknown  ;  five  persons  perished  in  it.  The  next 
was  in  1543,  when  Filmer,  Testwood,  and 
Peerson  were  burned  under  Windsor  Castle  persecu-  ^' 
for  unseemly  jesting  on  religion,  and  Mer-  }i°"founaa. 
beck,  the  Church  musician  to  whom  the  man-  tions. 
ner  of  intoning  our  services  is  mainly  due, 
narrowly  escaped  the  same  fate — it  is  said  for  making  a 
Concordance  of  the  New  Testament.  'Poor  innocents!' 
Henry  had  exclaimed,  on  hearing  how  the  men  died  ;  and 
in  the  same  spirit  he  now  interfered  to  protect  the  deposed 
Bishop  Latimer,  and  a  physician  named  Huick  who  ap- 
pealed to  him.  In  1546  the  fourth  and  last  persecution 
took  place,  when  Lascelles,  a  gentleman  of  the  Bed- 
chamber, a  priest  named  Belemian,  and  Adams,  a  tailor, 
suffered  for  the  still  unpardonable  offence  of  denying 
transubstantiation.  But  their  fame  has  been  eclipsed  by 
that  of  Anne  Ascue,  a  young  and  beautiful  woman  who 
was  accused  on  the  same  point.  With  the  consequences 
full  in  view,  this  heroine  wrote,  as  an  account  of  her 
belief,  '  The  bread  is  but  a  remembrance  of  His  death,  or 
a  sacrament  of  thanksgiving  for  it.'  It  gives  a  thrill  of 
anger  even  now  to  hear  that  the  Lord  Chancellor  and 
Solicitor-General  tortured  her  again  and  again  to  find 
out  who  favored  her.  She  was  burned,  and  the  place 
watched  all  night,  to  hinder  her  friends  from  doing 
reverence  to  her  ashes  and  arrest  them  if  they  tried. 
A  little  earlier  than  this  an  Act  of  Parliament  had 
placed  in  Henry's  hands  the  '  chantries '  of  the  kingdom 


234  The  Early  Tudors.  1546- 

— that  is,  the  innumerable  foundations  for  private  masses 
in  cathedrals  and  other  churches — and  with  them  the 
'  colleges  and  hospitals,'  requesting  him  to  take  the  pro- 
perty '  for  his  wars  and  the  maintenance  of  his  dignity.' 
At  the  Universities  Henry  used  the  power  thus  given 
him  to  compel  the  surrender  of  several  Cambridge  halls 
and  to  found  Trinity  College  out  of  their  collective  pro- 
perty ;  its  larger  endowments,  however,  are  due  not  to 
him  but  to  Queen  Mary.  In  the  same  spirit  Henry 
left  to  the  citizens  of  London  the  ancient  Priory  of  St. 
Bartholomew  to  be  a  hospital  for  the  poor. 

Within  a  few  days  of  the  death  of  Katherine  Howard 
the  King  married  Katherine  Parr,  the  widow  of  the  Lord 

Latimer  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  Pil- 
Katherine         grimage  of  Grace  and  pardoned  after  it.   This 

lady  was  a  most  kind  stepmother  to  all  his 
children,  and  a  first-rate  nurse  to  himself.  Her  Cam- 
bridge correspondents  called  her '  Reginadoctissima,'  and 
their  admiration  is  justified  by  her  book  of  devotion  called 
the  '  Lamentacion  of  a  Sinner.'  She  was  inclined  to 
Protestantism,  her  almoner  being  Miles  Coverdale ;  is 
said  to  have  interceded  for  Merbeck,  and  certainly  con- 
tributed much  to  the  conviction  for  perjury  of  Dr.  London, 
who,  after  distinguishing  himself  in  the  Visitation  of  the 
Monasteries,  had  undertaken  the  congenial  task  of  forging 
evidences  in  cases  of  heresy.  This  made  Chancellor 
Wriothesley  and  Bishop  Gardiner  her  bitter  enemies  ;  and, 
according  to  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  they  succeeded  in 
inducing  the  King  to  have  articles  of  heresy  drawn  out 
against  her,  as  having  received  forbidden  books  from  her 
sister.  Lady  Herbert.  Henry,  it  appears,  had  been  an- 
noyed by  her  pressing  him  strongly  to  allow  the  general  use 
of  the  translated  Bible,  and  therefore  gave  his  consent  to 
the  articles  ;  Wriothesley,  however,  accidentally  dropped 


-1547  Last  Persecutions.  235 

the  paper  containing  them,  and  thus  it  came  to  Kather- 
ine's  knowledge.  She  at  first  gave  herself  up  for  lost,  but 
presently  succeeded  in  persuading  her  husband  that,  if 
she  had  ever  spoken  to  him  on  theology,  it  was  in  order 
to  be  herself  instructed.  It  is  supposed  that  the  torture  of 
Anne  Ascue  was  intended  to  elicit  evidence  against  the 
Queen ;  but  if  so,  it  failed  signally  of  its  purpose. 

On  Friday  the  28th  of  January,  1547,  Norfolk  was  to  die 
at  nine  in  the  morning ;  but  when  that  time  struck  Henry 
had  been  dead  eight  hours,  and  the  Duke  was 
safe.  Late  on  the  preceding  evening  the  King  Hen'ry.° 
had  been  told  that  his  end  was  near ;  on  which 
he  characteristically  said  that  as  his  physicians  had  con- 
demned him,  their  work  was  over,  and  he  wanted  no  more 
interference  from  them.  He  would  send  for  no  one  but 
Cranmer,  and  put  this  off  so  long  that  when  the  Arch- 
bishop arrived  he  could  only  press  his  hand  as  a  sign 
that  he  looked  for  mercy  through  Christ.  He  desired  to 
be  buried  at  Windsor  in  the  same  tomb  with  Queen  Jane ; 
and,  like  his  father,  ordered  that  masses  should  be  said 
there  '  perpetually  while  the  world  shall  endure.'  Finally 
with  unwavering  faith  he  asked  for  the  intercession  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Saints.  During  his  absence 
at  Boulogne  in  1544  Queen  Katherine  had  been  his 
Regent;  but,  to  her  great  disappointment,  she  found  the 
power  given  by  Henry's  will  to  a  Council  of  Regency 
headed  by  Cranmer.  As  Parliament  had  in  1536  allowed 
the  King  to  dispose  of  the  crown  by  will,  he  placed  first 
Mary  and  then  Elizabeth  in  succession  after  Edward,  on 
condition  that  they  married  only  with  the  royal  consent. 
Foreseeing  in  all  probability  the  marriage  which  so  very 
soon  took  place  between  Katherine  and  Sir  Thomas 
Seymour,  the  lover  from  whom  he  had  taken  her,  he 
allowed  her  only  a  moderate  provision. 


236  The  Early  Tudors.  1546- 

At  his  death  Henry  left  the  Church  still  under  the 
Six  Articles,  though  procedure  according  to  them  had 
„       ,  on  purpose  been  made  more  difficult.     Its 

Henry  s  /.      ' 

influence  on  position  had  also  been  defined  by  the  '  Neces- 
sary Doctrme  and  Erudition  of  a  Christian 
Man  '  (generally  called  the  '  King's  Book  '),  which  was 
printed  for  the  first  time  in  1544,  having  been  accepted  by 
Parliament  in  the  previous  year.  Many  of  its  statements 
are,  as  we  might  expect,  more  Roman  in  tone  than  those 
of  its  predecessor,  the  '  Bishops'  Book.'  But  fortunately 
for  the  Church  there  had  grown  up  besides  these  formu- 
laries something  of  far  better  omen  for  the  future.  Eras- 
mus had  adopted  in  the  years  from  15 16  to  1535  the  bold 
course  of  publishing  successive  editions  of  the  Greek 
Testament  based  upon,  in  great  part,  though  not  entirely, 
the  evidence  of  MSS.  ;  this  was  in  effect  a  declaration 
that  St.  Jerome's  Latin  translation,  generally  called  the 
Vulgate,  had  not  really  the  final  and  conclusive  authority 
ascribed  to  it  by  the  Roman  Church.  His  Paraphrases 
also  set  the  good  example  of  explaining  all  passages  with 
their  full  context,  instead  of  taking  a  verse  here  and  there 
and  drawing  random  inferences  from  it,  in  the  manner 
of  which  we  have  seen  an  example  in  the  discussions 
on  the  exemption  of  the  clergy  from  the  civil  Courts. 
Moreover,  the  Bible  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  twice 
translated,  and  though  Tyndal  suffered  martyrdom  at 
Vilvorde,  and  the  circulation  of  his  English  Bible 
was  fenced  about  with  many  restrictions  and  sometimes 
nearly  stopped,  it  had  still  been  publicly  declared  to  be 
'the  only  touchstone  of  true  learning.*  The  Lord's 
Prayer  and  the  Ten  Commandments  had  been  taught  in 
English  since  1539;  in  1543  and  1544  English  litanies 
were  used  by  authority,  and  Cranmer  also  translated 
the   Te    Deum    and   other    hymns    'in    order   that   all 


-1547  Advance  of  Pfoicstaniism.  237 

such  as  were  ignorant  of  any  strange  or  foreign  speech 
might  have  what  to  pray  in  their  own  famihar  and 
acquainted  tongue  with  fruit  and  understanding.  Thus 
everything  was  ready  for  the  great  work  of  Edward's  first 
years,  the  drawing  up  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
in  a  form  hke  that  which  we  still  have,  though  in  some 
points  nearer  to  that  now  used  by  the  Episcopal  Churches 
in  Scotland  and  America.  Roman  Catholic  writers  have 
constantly  assumed  not  only  that  these  formularies  are 
heretical,  but  that  the  effect  of  Henry's  ordinances  has 
been  to  enslave  the  Church  of  England  to  the  State, 
The  former  of  these  points  can  hardly  be  discussed  in  a 
work  like  the  present.  On  the  latter  it  will  be  enough  to 
remark  once  more  that  at  the  time  it  was  absolutely  nec- 
essary to  check  the  use  by  the  clergy  of  their  independent 
powers.  It  deeply  concerned  the  very  being  of  religion 
in  England  that  priests  should  neither  kill  their  parish- 
ioners for  Christ's  sake,  nor  plot  against  their  property, 
nor  claim  immunity  from  crime  as  a  privilege  of  their 
order;  hardly  anything,  indeed,  could  be  more  violent 
and  therefore  more  anti-Christian  than  their  attempts  to 
compel  belief  by  penalties.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that 
Henry's  Parliament  did  rightly  in  depriving  them  of 
powers  so  much  misused ;  nor  has  anything  since 
occurred  to  make  us  wish  the  changes  undone.  It  has 
been  well  that  the  sturdy  sense  of  Parliament  should 
have  to  be  persuaded  before  religious  changes  could  be 
made  ;  well,  too,  at  least  in  times  when  the  people  have 
cared  for  religion,  that  bishops  should  be  chosen,  not 
according  to  the  narrow  standard  of  purely  clerical 
electors,  but  by  a  Minister  of  the  Crown  who,  with  every 
reason  both  of  feeling  and  interest  to  select  wise  and 
practical  men  for  the  office,  can  also  resist  currents  of 
temporary  Church  feeling  and  in  some  degree  see  events 


238  The  Early  Tudors.  1546- 

as  history  will  see  them.  Under  no  other  institutions, 
perhaps,  would  the  Church,  by  losing  step  by  step  all 
compulsory  powers,  have  been  so  wholesomely  trained 
and  so  perpetually  encouraged  to  rely  on  persuasion 
only,  thus  gaining  a  strength  which  she  never  could 
have  dreamed  of  in  her  masterful  days.  And  although 
agitation  has  sometimes  been  created  in  our  own  time 
by  the  sentences  of  certain  civil  Courts  in  Church  ques- 
tions, yet  such  judgments  have  been  generally  acqui- 
esced in  when  the  immediate  stir  has  been  over,  and 
found  not  in  any  way  to  lower  the  Church  or  to  fetter  her 
development.  It  would  be  hard  to  point  to  any  one  good 
thing  desired  by  the  Church  which  has  been  hindered 
by  her  relations  to  the  State,  or  to  any  evil  thing  to 
which  they  have  given  a  longer  life.  If  uncorrected 
abuses  still  exist,  we  may  be  sure  that  they  remain  so 
because  members  of  the  Church  have  not  yet  made  up 
their  minds  that  they  are  intolerable,  and  not  because, 
the  law  being  what  it  is,  such  things  must  needs  live  on 
to  vex  us  however  much  we  may  dislike  them. 

The  laws  affecting  religion  occupy  so  large  a  space  in 
this  reign  that  those  on  civil  matters  are  apt  to  escape 
notice,  though  many  of  them  well  deserve  to 
Henry^Vin.  ^e  remembered.  Such  were  those  affecting 
beggars,  who,  if  really  impotent,  were  to  have 
written  leave  to  ask  alms  in  a  specified  district ;  if '  whole 
and  mighty  in  body  '  were  to  be  whipped  the  first  time 
they  begged  and  sent  home  to  their  own  parish,  where  by 
another  law  the  overseers  were  bound  to  employ  them. 
If  any  such  person  offended  a  second  time,  the  gristle  of  his 
ear  was  to  be  cut  off,  besides  a  whipping ;  and  for  a  third 
offence  he  was  to  die  as  an  enemy  of  the  commonwealth. 
On  the  same  principle  of  hatred  to  people  with  no  visible 
livelihood  all  Gypsies  were  in  1530  sent  out  of  the  country. 


-1547  Civil  Laws  of  the  Reign.  239 

Another  kind  of  poverty  which  the  age  would  not  tolerate 
was  that  of  the  '  poor  and  broken  bankrupt ;'  it  was  held 
that  'the  crime  and  its  name  were  both  of  foreign 
growth,'  and  the  surrender  of  all  the  insolvent's  property 
would  never  give  him  a  discharge  till  the  last  farthing 
was  paid.  An  Act  of  1 546  repealed  the  old  laws  of  usury, 
allowing  interest  to  be  charged  up  to  10  per  cent. 

New  felonies  were  created  under  Henry  VIII.  as 
quickly  and  easily  as  when  Burke  made  his  celebrated 
protest  against  them.  It  became  felony  to  cut  dykes  in 
Norfolk  or  the  Isle  of  Ely,  to  sell  horses  to  Scotchmen, 
to  poach  fish  between  six  in  the  evening  and  six  in  the 
morning,  to  come  masked  into  a  royal  park  in  order  to 
kill  deer,  to  steal  young  hawks  or  peacocks,  or  to  burn 
any  frame  of  timber  prepared  for  building  a  house.  New 
treasons  were  still  more  profusely  invented,  going  far 
beyond  the  old  definition  of  Edward  III.,  which  almost 
limited  the  crime  to  the  three  cases  of  levying  war  against 
the  King,  compassing  his  death,  or  adhering  to  his 
enemies.  For  Henry's  Parhament  declared  at  different 
times  that  those  were  traitors  who  '  took,  judged,  or 
believed'  the  marriages  with  Katherine  of  Aragon  or 
Anne  of  Cleves  to  have  been  valid,  who  impugned 
the  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn,  who  called  the  King  a 
heretic,  schismatic,  or  usurper,  who  married  any  of  the 
King's  family  without  his  permission,  who  married  the 
King  himself  without  revealing  past  lapses,  or  who 
disobeyed  any  royal  proclamation  and  then  escaped 
from  the  kingdom.  Lastly,  in  one  peculiar  case  such  a 
law  was  ex  post  facto.  A  cook  named  Rouse  had  tried 
to  poison  his  master,  the  Bishop  of  Rochester,  and 
caused  the  death  of  two  persons  ;  such  acts  were  there- 
fore made  treasonable  by  a  general  law,  which  mentioned 
him  by  name  and  sentenced  him  to  be  boiled  to  death. 


240  The  Early  Tudors.  1546- 

If  from  the  laws  against  crime  we  pass  on  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Courts  administered  them,  it  is  too  plain 

that  hardly  any  sound  principles  of  justice 
Henry "vm      ^^<^^^  knowH  or  thought  of.    Else  how  could 

it  have  been  that  hardly  any  prisoners  of 
state  were  ever  acquitted  ?  Experience  has  taught  us  that 
evidence  is  generally  worthless  unless  cross-examined, 
but  rarely  indeed  had  an  accused  person  any  such  chance 
then ;  not  to  mention  that  the  bad  habit  of  prosecuting, 
not  for  the  crime,  but  for  just  so  much  as  would  bring  the 
accused  under  the  letter  of  the  law,  must  have  destroyed 
the  chances  of  showing  discrepancy  in  the  evidence  which 
there  would  have  been  if  the  witnesses  had  been  forced  to 
state  all  they  knew.  Of  course  a  government  which  so 
administers  justice  must  be  cynically  indifferent  to  one  of 
its  prime  duties,  that  of  showing  unmistakably  to  all  men, 
even  to  the  culprit  himself,  that  if  the  law  strikes  him 
it  is  because  he  has  thoroughly  deserved  it.  Not  all 
Englishmen  of  the  time  had  Cromwell's  Italian  unscru- 
pulousness — learned,  as  he  himself  said,  from  Macchia- 
velli — as  to  the  means  by  which  his  ends  were  to  be  accom- 
plished ;  but  it  is  not  the  less  true  that  such  outrages  on 
justice  introduced  into  the  national  temper  a  mixture 
of  cruelty  and  hypocrisy  which  it  took  centuries  to  eradi- 
cate. 

The  barrenness  of  the  last  reign  in  the  field  of  literature 
still  continued,  as  is  natural  in  a  time  when  religious  con- 
troversy fills  all  men's  minds ;  indeed  popular  poetry  was 

far  better  represented  in  Scotland,  which  the 
AeT'e^iod  Reformation  had  hardly  yet  reached,  by  the 

really  beautiful  poems  of  Dunbar  and  Ga- 
waine  Douglas,  the  translator  of  Vergil,  than  by  anything 
which  England  had  to  show  at  the  same  time.  In  Dun- 
bar's '  Timor  mortis  conturbat  me,'  we  see  here  and  there 


-1547  Literature  of  the  Reign.  241 

that  Shakspere  has  been  beforehand  with  us  in  admiring 
him,  as  in  the  graceful  stanza — 

I  see  that  Makars  (poets)  amang  the  lave 
Plays  here  their  pageants,  syne  goes  to  grave. 
Spared  is  not  their  faculty. 

Timor  -mortis  conturbat  me. 

He  fully  deserves  to  be  called,  as  he  is  by  Professor 
Morley,  the  best  English  poet  since  the  days  of  Chaucer ; 
his  charming  '  Without  gladness  avails  no  treasure  '  is 
even  alone  sufficient  to  prove  this.  Gawaine  Douglas,  who 
was  Bishop  of  Dunkeld  under  Margaret  of  Scotland, 
manages  skilfully  enough  in  his  '  King  Heart'  a  stanza 
something  hke  Ariosto's;  and  his  allegorical  treatment 
seems  to  have  given  many  hints  to  Spenser.  Sir  David 
Lindsay's  verse,  as  Walter  Scott  said,  '  still  has  charms  ; ' 
his  poem  of  '  Jock-up-aland  '  ends  with  a  fervent  prayer 
that  James  V.  may  be  strong  enough  to  '  ding  those 
mony  kings  a'  doon '  who  are  making  Scotland  so  miser- 
able ;  and  when  James  freed  himself  from  his  guardians, 
Sir  David  was  not  backward  in  poetically  teaching  him 
the  real  meaning  of  liberty.  In  England  the  palm  of 
satiric  verse  (it  can  hardly  be  called  poetry)  was  borne  by 
Skelton,  who  left  off  mocking  at  the  great  Cardinal  only 
when  obliged  in  1 528  to  take  sanctuary  at  Westminster 
and  thus  avoid  his  vengeance.  His  '  Colin  Clout '  is  on 
the  need  of  reformation  in  Church  and  State  ;  in  '  Speak, 
Parrot,'  and  'Why  come  ye  not  to  Court?'  he  makes  his 
bitterest  attacks  on  Wolsey  ;  and  in  '  Phylyppe  Sparrow ' 
he  describes  with  much  humour  a  tender-hearted  nun's 
grief  for  her  lost  pet.  With  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  and  the 
Earl  of  Surrey  began  the  refined  imitation  of  Italian 
poetic  forms;  in  their  hands  verse  seemed  to  become 
suddenly  modern.  They  introduced  the  sonnet  in  English, 
Q 


242  The  Early  Tiidors.  1546- 

and  Wyatt  at  least  shows  in  his  '  Renouncing  of  Love  ' 
that  he  has  gained  from  Petrarca  a  real  sense  of  its  capa- 
bilities ;  he  also  in  his  poem  on  the  '  Courtier's  Life ' 
employs  Dante's  ierza  rima.  Surrey,  too,  was  an  inventor 
in  poetry  ;  to  him  is  due  the  first  English  blank  verse,  as 
used  in  a  translation  from  the  ^neid.  His  sonnets, 
though  far  less  melodious  than  Milton's,  yet  have  the 
descriptions  of  personal  character  of  which  the  later 
poet  makes  such  noble  use  ;  this  maybe  seen  in  Surrey's 
sonnets  on  the  fair  Geraldine  and  on  his  faithful  follower 
Richard  Clere, 

The  drama  was  at  this  time  very  much  in  the  rough, 
though  it  is  almost  surprising  to  see  how  much  Shakspere 
condescends  to  borrow  from  the  humours  of 
Jiid  profe  Udall's  '  Ralph  Roister  Doister,'  which  was 

probably  written  in  this  reign.  Heywood  was 
also  celebrated  at  the  time  for  interludes,  one  of  the  best 
being  '  The  Four  P's,'  a  dialogue  between  Pardoner, 
Palmer,  Ponticary,  and  Pedlar.  The  honour  of  English 
prose  was  still  sustained  chiefly  by  Sir  Thomas  More's 
History  of  Edward  V.  and  by  the  '  Utopia.'  Theologians, 
however,  did  much  to  establish  purity  of  style,  especially 
when  they  wished  to  be  simple  in  order  to  instruct  the 
common  people.  Cranmer's  '  Institution  of  a  Christian 
Man  '  is  really  excellent  from  its  direct  and  winning  ex- 
pression ;  and  though  Hugh  Latimer  did  not  much  con- 
form to  any  art  canons,  yet  few  Englishmen  have  ever 
equalled  him  in  the  power  of  downright  preaching,  espe- 
cially on  semi-political  subjects.  Above  all,  of  course, 
the  Bible  had  been  beautiful  in  Tyndal's  translation,  and 
was  gradually  advancing  to  that  perfection  which  has 
won  the  hearts  of  Revisers  in  the  present  day. 

Scientific  study  could  hardly  be  said  to  exist  as  yet ; 
men  were  far  more  curious  to  know  the  Latin  and  Greek 


-1547  English  Character.  243 

names  of  natural  objects,  as  Erasmus  recommended,  than 
to  investigate  their  properties.  Hardly  any  scientific 
works  appear  to  have  been   sold  by  an  Ox- 

Science 

ford  bookseller  whose  trade  diary  from  1 520 
onwards  has  been  preserved.  It  has  been  already  noted 
that  Linacre,  the  most  truly  scientific  man  of  the  reign, 
did  not  describe  the  most  remarkable  diseases  of  his  own 
time ;  indeed  he  aimed,  perhaps  wisely,  at  restoring 
medicine  through  the  works  of  the  ancients  rather  than 
by  direct  observation,  and  devoted  himself  almost  en- 
tirely to  translations  from  Galen.  The  science  of  the 
day  had  not  yet  broken  its  connection  with  the  occult 
sciences;  even  the  earnest  and  severe  Paul  III.,  Pope  as 
he  was,  never  held  a  consistory  or  entered  upon  anything 
important  without  consulting  the  stars.  Henry  VIII.,  as 
we  have  seen,  questioned  soothsayers  about  the  sex  of 
his  future  children  with  the  same  faith  which  afterwards 
made  Charles  I.  send  500/.  to  an  astrologer  when  he  was 
planning  his  escape  from  Hampton  Court ;  he  also  in- 
vited to  England  the  celebrated  Cornelius  Agrippa,  whose 
reputation  for  magical  knowledge  was  high.  Alchemy 
was  in  great  vogue  at  Paris,  where  hundreds  of  adepts 
were  following  each  his  own  system  ;  in  England  it  was 
less  popular,  inasmuch  as  the  celebrated  Dee,  afterwards 
so  favoured  by  Elizabeth,  had  to  leave  Cambridge  on 
beginning  to  study  it.  The  belief  in  witchcraft  was  shown 
in  England  by  the  statute  of  1541  already  referred  to; 
but  only  after  Popes  had  been  fulminating  against  it  for 
fifty  years  and  prosecutions  had  long  been  innumerable 
in  France,  Germany,  and  Italy.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  statute  made  it  penal,  not  in  itself,  but  only  if  it 
aimed  at  destroying  life. 

It  is  always  difficult  clearly  to  discern  the  cvery-day 
character  and  feeling  of  a  people  in  times  long  past.  Yet  we 
are  not  quite  without  hints  what  Englishmen  were  like  in 


244  The  Early  Tudors.  1546- 

the  sixteenth  century.     The  kindliness  and  sobriety  dis- 
played here  in  times  of  pestilence  have  been 

Character  '■      ■'  '■ 

ofthemiddle  noticed  above.  Akin  to  the  same  temper  was 
the  general  submission  to  established  au- 
thority, even  when,  without  the  support  of  any  standing 
army  or  organised  police,  it  was  can-ying  the  most  violent 
changes.  Even  in  the  worst  times  a  hundred  yeomen 
of  the  guard  were  enough  to  secure  Henry's  person. 
Probably  the  real  reason  for  this  obedience  was  the 
same  dread  of  renewing  civil  war  which  afterwards  made 
England  endure  without  rebelling  the  many  misdoings 
of  Charles  II.  Of  the  social  temper  of  our  countrymen 
in  those  days  there  are  curiously  opposite  accounts.  A 
French  traveller  complains  of  their  hatred  for  all  for- 
eigners, especially  his  countrymen  ;  of  the  bad  names 
which  they  call  them,  and  of  the  way  in  which  they  break 
their  word.  A  German,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  say 
enough  of  English  politeness  to  the  aged  and  to  those 
whom  they  consider  learned  ;  of  their  '  incredible  courtesy 
and  friendliness  of  speech,'  of  the  beauty  of  the  ladies, 
who,  he  says,  '  never  heretic  {ketzerti)  their  faces  with 
paint,'  and,  strangest  of  all,  of  the  wondrous  comfort, 
civility,  and  respect  which  travellers  received  in  English 
inns.  Of  course  the  relations  of  English  commerce  to 
Germany  and  France,  as  described  above,  may  throw 
much  light  on  these  contradictions  in  statement.  Pleasant 
would  it  be  to  look  into  the  interior  of  more  families,  and 
see  whether  there  were  many  in  England  where  the  love 
of  father  and  daughter  was  as  profound  as  that  between 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  Margaret  Roper  ;  and  into  more 
meetings  of  heretics  to  search  for  affection  like  that 
between  Dalaber  and  Garret  in  1528.  'I  besought  Gar- 
ret,' says  Dalaber,  '  that  he  for  the  tender  mercies  of  God 
would  not  refuse  me  ;  saying  that  I  trusted  verily  that  he 
which  had  begun  this  in  me  would  not  forsake  me,  but 


-1 547         Consiituiional  Results  of  the  Reign.  245 

give  me  grace  to  continue  therein  unto  the  end.  When 
he  heard  me  say  so,  he  kissed  me,  the  tears  trickhng  from 
his  eyes,  and  said  to  me,  "  The  Lord  God  Almighty 
grant  you  so  to  do  ;  and  from  henceforth  forever  take  me 
for  your  father,  and  I  will  take  you  for  my  son  in  Christ."  ' 
We  need  not  enquire  whether  the  new  beliefs  (or  indeed 
the  old  ones)  made  men  brave  ;  those  who  were  first  to  con- 
ceive novelties  or  who  had  first  to  defend  old  things  might 
be  bewildered  by  their  position,  but  soon  there  grew  up 
in  both  a  courage  which  literally  seemed  to  think  nothing 
of  the  fire.  A  slight  forcing  of  language  might  have  saved 
Lambert's  life ;  Forrest  certainly  need  not  have  expressed 
any  opinion  about  Cardinal  Fisher's  death.  Yet  both 
those  men  determinedly  spoke  out  in  spite  of  the  terrors 
which  lay  before  them,  and  would  not  have  varied  their 
mode  of  statement  by  a  hair's-breadth  to  save  their  life. 
Some  of  the  reforming  party  have  been  blamed  for  a  flip- 
pancy and  abusiveness  before  their  judges  which  made  it 
more  difficult  t  o  show  them  any  indulgence ;  nor  can  the 
charge  be  altogether  denied.  But  then  it  is  beyond  most 
men  to  die  like  Latimer,  with  no  harsh  word  to  his  perse- 
cutors, or  like  More,  with  a  wish  that  '  he  and  they  might 
find  mercy  together  in  a  better  world.'  Even  if  some 
came  short  of  this,  their  tongue-violences  may  be  con- 
doned, since  they  were  quite  as  willing  to  die  for  their 
cause  as  to  rail  at  its  enemies. 

Here,  then,  this  brief  summary  of  two  reigns  must 
end  ;  it  will  be  for  abler  hands,  with  the  help  of  the  fresh 
material  which  every  year  now  accumulates,  to  trace  the 
gradual  expulsion  from  our  political  system  of  the  bad 
elements  of  Tudor  despotism.  To  this  Henry  VIII.,  in 
spite  of  all  appearances,  contributed  both  negatively  and 
positively.  Negatively  because  his  striking  personality 
dignified  in  a  manner  the  violences  which  he  committed 
and  the  extravagances  which  he  forced  his  Parliament 


246  The  Early  Tudors.  1546-7 

to  enact ;  so  that  subsequent  kings  of  less  imposing  char- 
acter were  Hkely  to  fail  in   attempting  the 
Henry"  like.     Could  his  modes  of  government  have 

viii.'s  in-         been    established,   they   vi'ould   have    been 

stitutions.  '  ■'     _ 

hardly  less  than  a  Turkish  despotism  ;  but 
they  lived  only  in  the  unregulated  and  despotic  spirit 
which  they  were  intended  to  gratify,  drooped  and 
flagged  when  he  was  gone,  and  by  no  means  uprooted 
from  the  minds  of  Englishmen  the  remembrance  of  their 
ancient  liberties.  And  he  also  most  unwittingly,  but  still 
really,  gave  our  freedom  more  than  one  kind  of  positive 
help.  For  his  rough  and  violent  hand  broke  down  super- 
stitions, which,  though  we  now  regard  them  tenderly,  we 
should  have  been  sure  to  denounce  if  we  had  lived  at 
the  time.  He  raised  up  out  of  the  spoils  of  the  monas- 
teries the  great  and  strong  middle  class  which  was  at 
length  to  curb  his  successors.  Above  all,  his  way  of  re- 
ferring constantly  to  Parliament,  because  he  found  it  ser- 
vile, and  bringing  such  a  variety  of  affairs  under  its  cog- 
nisance, had  at  least  the  effect  of  keeping  its  powers  well 
in  mind  against  the  time  when  some  fortunate  election 
might  send  up  to  Westminster  a  body  of  members  with 
principles  worth  having  and  a  strong  determination  to 
make  them  good  against  all  opposition.  He  trained  Parlia- 
ment to  register  his  edicts ;  but  the  very  fact  that  they  had 
to  do  so  proved  their  inherent  right  to  dispute  them  if 
they  would.  Therefore  when,  as  Burke  says,  new  times 
brought  with  them  new  modes  of  tyranny,  it  was  a  light 
thing  for  Parliament  to  use  against  Elizabeth's  monopolies, 
or  James's  claim  that  the  sea-coast  was  his  own,  or 
Charles's  demand  for  ship-money,  the  power  which  had 
been  technically  acknowledged  in  so  many  various  forms 
and  as  applying  to  affairs  so  important. 

In    these  two    ways,  then,  the   institutions  of  Henry 
VIII.  have  favoured  English  freedom. 


INDEX. 


ABE 

A  BERGAVENNY,  Lord,  139 
■'^    Adrian  VI.,  Pope,  143 
Agrippa,  Cornelius,  243 
Albany,  the  Duke  of,  130,  145 
Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  53 
Alfonso  of  Naples,  8i 
Andre,  Bernard,  22 
Angus,  Lord,  130 
Anne  Boleyn,  156, 171,  189 
Anne  Duchess  of  Bourbon,  17,  34, 

121 

Anne  Duchess  of  Bretagne,  34,  37, 

59 
Anne  of  Cleves,  214 
Arran,  the  Earl  of,  218,  220 
Arthur,  Prince,  54 
Ascue,  Anne,  233 
Aske,  Robert,  201 
Audley,  Chancellor,  179,  233 
Aurispa,  82 
Ayala,  Don  Pedro  de,  54 


■pARBAROSSA,  188,  227 
^     Barklay,  92 
Bartons,  the,  47,  109 
Barton,  Elizabeth,  176 
Bell,  Dr.  John,  126 
Beton,  Cardinal,  221 
Bothwell,  Ramsay,  Lord,  46 
Bourbon,  the  Constable,  149 
Bourchier,  Sir  T.,  18 
Bray,  Sir  Reginald,  48 
Brooke,  Lord,  38 
Buckingham,    the    Duke    of, 

140 
Bulmer,  Lady,  204 


(^ABOT.John,  77 
^-'     Cabot,  Sebastian,  77,  iii 
Campeggio,  Cardinal,  133 
Catesby,  20 


EXE 

Chapuys,  189,  190 

Charles    V.,   the  Emperor,  5,  137, 

175,  188,  225 
Charles  VIII.,  8,  35,  51 
Charles  the  Bold,   7 
Chrysoloras,  Manuel,  82 
Clarence,  George  Duke  of,  30 
Clement  VII.,   Pope,  149,  158,  192 
Cleves,  the  Duke  of,  214,  227 
Clifford,  the  Shepherd  Lord,  23 
Colet,  Dean,  83,  85,  96,  no 
Columbus,  76 
Commines,     Philipe    de,  8,  11,   17, 

Conquest,  title  from,  21 
Cordova,  Gonzalo  de,  59 
Council,  the  Privy,  11,  72 
Cranmer,  Archbishop,  172, 186, 191 
Cromwell,  Lord,    169,  183,  213,  215 
Crusades  projected,  56,  106,  132 
Curzon,  Sir  Robert,  60 


■p)ACRE,    Lord  (of   the  North), 
^-^     131,  180,  218 
Dacre,  Lord  (of  the  South),  225 
Dalaber,  244 
Darcy,  Lord,  180,201 
Daubeny,  Lord,  48 
Dee,  Dr.,  242 
Deposition,  Bull  of,  193 
Dorset,  Marquis  of,  114 
Douglas,  Gawaine,  240 
Dudley,  Edmund,   63, 104 
Dudley,  Sir  John  (Lord  Lisle),  222, 
230 


■pDWARD  IV.,  12,29 

^-^     Elizabeth,  Queen,  22,  33,  62, 

99 
,  Empson,  Richard,  63,  104 
Exeter,  the  Marquis  of,  209 


248 


Index. 


rrERDINAND,  of  Aragon,  5,  41, 

-'■       114,  135 

Fisher,  Cardinal,  89,  106,  155,  160. 

178,183 
Fitzgerald,  Lord  Thomas,  iSo 
Forrest,  207,  245 
Fox,  Bishop,  28,  88 
Francis,  Duke  of  Bretagne,  17,  34 
Francis  I.,  121,  133,  139,  225 
Fraternity  of  St.  George,  69 
Frederic  III.,  Emperor,  9,  41 
Frederic,  King  of  Naples,  59 
Frith,  186 


GALLICAN  Liberties,  55 
Gardiner,   Bishop,    163,     216, 

234       ^     , 
Glamis,  Lady,  219 
Glyn  Cothi,  213 
Goch,  John  of,  152 
Granada,  capture  of,  39 
Grey,  Lord  Leonard,  181,  222 
Grocyn,  William,  83 


"LJ  AMILTON,  Patrick,  218 

•'^     Haughton,  182 

Hawes,  02 

Henry  IV.,  10 

Henry  V.,  10 

Henry  VI.,  14,  62,  99 

Henry  VII.,  his  descent,  13  ;  his 
title,  14 

Henry  VIII.,  character  of,  102,  167 

Henry  III.  of  Castile,  3 

Henry  IV.  of  Castile,  4 

Hertford,  the  Earl  of,  206 

Heywood,  242 

Howard,  Sir  E.,  108 

Howard,  Sir  T.  (iee  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk) 

Himgerford,  Sir  Walter,  18 

Hus,  John,  151 

Hussey,  Lord,  201,  204 


INTERCURSUS    MAGNUS, 
■^     the,  50,  74 
Intercursus  Malus,  the,  6i 
Isabella  of  Castile,  5,  55,  57 


TAMES  III.  of  Scotland,  38 
J     James  IV.  of  Scotland,  64,  108, 
118,  157 


MOR 

James  V.  of  Scotland,  217 
John  II.  (of  Castile),  4 
Juana,  Queen  of  Spain,  55,61 
Julius  II.,  Pope,  62,  112 


T^  ATHERINE  of  France,  14 
^^     Katherine  Roet,  14 
Katherine  of  Aragon,  54,  104,  156, 

189 
Katherine  Howard,  224 
Katherme  Parr,  234 
Kildare,  Lord,  3T,  47,  66 
Kmgston,  Sir  William,  167, 180 


T   AMBERT,  John,  208 
•'-'     Landois,  17 
Latimer,  Hugh,  129,  207,  233 
Latimer,  Lord,  202 
Lee,  Bishop  Roland,  213 
Lennox,  Lady, 131 
Leo  X.,  Pope,  120, 143,  154 
Lilly,  William,  90 
Linacre,  25,  83,  243 
Lincoln,  the  Earl  of,  31 
L'Isle,  Adam,  147 
Lollardism,  152 
Louis  XI.,  6,  72 
Louis  XII.,  58,  III 
Lovel,  Lord,  32 
Luna,  Alvaro  de,  4 
Luther,  Martin,  141,  153 

IVrACCHIAVELLI,  2 

■'■'•'•     Magdalen,  Queen  of  Scotland, 

218 
Margaret,   Queen   of  Scotland,  54, 

62,  130,  145 
Margaret,  the  Lady,  15,105 
Margaret  of  Burgundy,  30,  31,  43, 

60 
Margaret  of  Savoy,  35,  37,  62,  112 
Margaret  Roper,  184 
Martyr,  Peter  (d'Angheria),  79 
Mary,  Queen  of  France,  121 
Mary  of  Guise,  217 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  220 
Maximilian,  the  Emperor,  45,  112, 

117, 137 
Merbeck,  234 

Merchant  Adventurers,  the,  49 
Meyer,  Marcus,  176 
More,  Sir  T.,  83,  84,  123,  147,  178. 

182. 


Index. 


249 


MOR 

Morton,  Cardinal,  17,  28,  36,  94, 1 
Mountjoy,  Lord,  86,  137 


■NTORFOLK,  the  Duke  of  (Sir  T. 
•'■^      Howard),   109,    117,  141,  202, 

211,  220,  231. 
Northumberland,  the  Duke  of,  38 
Northumberland,  the  Earl  of,  166 


QXFORD,  John  Earl  of,  23,  72 


pAUL  III.,  Pope,  183,  228,  243 

^       Petrarca,  81 

Philip,  the  Archduke,  45,  6i 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  6 

Poggio  Bracciolini,  81 

Pole,  Cardinal,  210 

Pole,  Sir  Geoffrey,  210 

Politian,  82 

Poynings,  Sir  Edward,  43,  67 

Praemunire,  150,  162,  169 


RHYS  AP  THOMAS,  18,  24 
Richard  III.,  16,  17 
Richard  Duke  of  York,  30 
Rochford,  Lady,  225 
Rochford,  Lord,  igo 
Rock,  Alderman,  230 


C  ALISBURY,  the  Countess  of,  22, 

^     178,  210,  225 

Scheiner,  Cardinal,  134 

Schwartz,  Martin,  31 

Seymour,  Jane,  Queen  of  England, 

206 
Sigismund,  the  Emperor,  151 
Simnel,  Lambert,  31 
Skelton,  241 
Staffords,  the  rebellion  of,  29 


YOR 

Stanley,  James,  Bishop  of  Ely,  86 

Stanley,  Lord,  16,  19 

Stanley,  Sir  William,  19,  45 

Steelyard,  the,  44 

Strange,  Lord,  18 

Strode,  124 

Suffolk,  Charles,  121,  157,  161,  201 

Suffolk,  Edmund  Duke  of,  60 

Supremacy,  the  Royal,  170 

Surrey,  Henry  Earl  of,  231 

Sweating  Sickness,  the,  25 


'TEROUENNE     and    Toumay, 

117. 
Torture  in  England,  12 
Tudor,  Edmund,  16 
Tudor,  Jasper,  16 
Tunstall,  Bishop,  123,  135 
Tyndal,  William,  192,  236,  242 


TTDALL,  242 

^     '  Utopia,'  the,  85, 93 


"\  T'ALLA,  Lorenzo,  84 

'  "^      Vasco  de  Gama,  74,  75 

Venice,  dominions  of,  112 


VyARBECK,  Perkin,  42,  49 
••      Warham,     Archbishop,    43, 

105,  157,  168,  172 
Warwick,  the  Countess  of,  22 
Warwick,  the  Earl  of,  21 
Waterford,  46 
Wessel,  152 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,     123,   137,   147, 

157.  161 
Worde,  Wynkyn  de,  91,  92 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  241 


yORK,  Richard  Duke  of,  30 


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30to-7,'70(N8475s8) — C-120 


